(R for plenty of bloody violence accompanied by ear-shattering blasts, brief nudity, profanity): Hollywood must be raking in the shekels with the vampire theme, but eventually it will run out of new approaches & then the repetition begins.
At least, this idea, that the world's population of bona fide humans has been reduced to about 5% and is declining steadily thanks to the needed supply of blood for the rest - almost seems like something symbolic for the present, with the possibility of a gradual destruction of our natural world. But that's too much to consider. The plot is far simpler, though it does follow as well, film antecedents about certain greedy people taking advantage of the have-nots for selfish reasons.
Actually, the novel variation works, at least enough to make the 100-minutes far from boring. We still have the good guys vs the bad - in this case the "humanitarians" who search for a blood substitute rather than sit around & fear the fatal doom vs the CEO of a pharmaceutical company who places self-preservation and excessive riches above anything else. Conflict! Guess who wins?
Thank relative newcomer brothers Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig for both authoring & directing with a certain élan, mixing in all the tried & tested devices to generate excitement - never afraid to toss in an occasional blasting musical stab along with Christopher Gordon's wham-bam-boom-crash orchestrations at top volume when things begin to slow down.
The cloudy brown eyes, the ubiquitous fangs, the leering lust at the sight of blood, and more - all well established characteristics of vampire flicks - along with the "message" about greed vs altruism on various levels - are entertaining at first, but the flow of blood, the chewing - not just on veins, but on the bodies - the mutilations & disasters when experiments don't work, begin to pale, sometimes becoming unintentionally funny. A bat screeching across the screen, drinks made with the red stuff replacing coffee, liquor, etc. - all messy to the nth degree. Forgive the pun, but it's a non-stop blood bath.
Wrap it all up with a solution to the world problem that arrives with a hilariously delivered final statement & mounting music that suggests nothing less than a cinematic Second Coming, and you have a show that becomes a guilty pleasure - fun while it lasts, but terribly silly by its bat-shrieking conclusion. (Grade: B-)