30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010)

Boring

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I suppose one could do worse than make a sequel to 30 Days of Night. Heroic female as the lead here and a female head vampire...girl power is the theme running through this film as far as the leads go. It's not even in the same realm as 30 Days Of Night the original so no comparison there. I gave it a 5 for a courageous effort and at least it made an attempt though it failed in most cases undeniably. The actors, outside of Sanchez and Coiro, were stale cardboard cutouts at best. The film takes too long to get going and once it finally does it seemingly goes nowhere fast. There's a few dim highlights laced throughout but nothing remotely like the original. Okay for a rent if you're not expecting too much.

I wasn't a massive fan of the first movie but it did have an interesting premise and was well handled.Here the survivors of vampire attacks team up to make a rag-tag band of desperadoes fighting a guerrilla war against the vampires who live parallel to us in the shadows.Sound familiar? Yep this could be 'Blade' or 'Underworld' or 'Buffy' or 'Twilight' or take your pick. All of those films have an element that is appealing to a particular audience or has a certain style. 30 Days has none of this.The vampire hunters have a lot emotional baggage, and oh my word, don't they let you know about it? They are more of a dysfunctional therapy group then anything. Yet despite their shared experiences and traumas none of them can get on.They moan on and on, even the obligatory sex scene is dull and awkward.Total snooze fest.

This is another example of a sequel not living up to the standard of its predecessor. In this particular case, Kiele Sanchez has taken over the character of "Stella Oleson" from the original movie, "30 Days of Night". And while she is certainly attractive enough, her acting was barely sufficient for the task at hand. Especially considering that few of the supporting cast managed to perform in an adequate manner at all. Rhys Coiro ("Paul"), for example, was simply awful. Likewise, most of the situations were just plain ludicrous. For instance, it's one thing to engage in a gun battle in an isolated Arctic town in the middle of nowhere. But try that in Los Angeles and the police would be all over the place. Yet apparently the audience is supposed to believe that a person can shoot all kinds of firearms in a warehouse and even blow the roof off without being noticed or heard. Only in Hollywood. Then there was the strange ending involving the death of "Lilith" (played by Mia Kirshner) in which Stella was allowed to walk right through the group of vampires--totally unmolested. Apparently they were too shocked to feast upon her. Now, in the original movie it might have made sense as the victor, "Eben Oleson", was also a vampire. But it made no sense the second time around. Again, this was a sequel and it simply was not up to the same standard as the original. Nowhere close.

The movie started with a strong female lead taking it to the vamps. Then a veteran crew of monster hunters shows up and 'cranks it to eleven'. It establishes this premise that it's going to be like Aliens (1986) but with vampires, and that is just awesome.And then, after all that hype, you get a really crap film. The characters backgrounds sound great but are apparently completely irreverent to their level of skills. So you end up watching these very nicely set up characters bumble their way into the jaws of death like level 1 npcs. This could have been an amazing film that just degenerates into a high school movie project.