Well… this was a dumpster fire.
Sunrise came available to rent on Friday, Jan. 19. The film follows an immigrant family that is being targeted — with no one to lean on, a mysterious man shows up at their home, and they soon discover he is a vampire.
First things first, the one thing that this flick does well is make you despise the villain. He is a racist and belittles anyone who is different than him. This is established very early on, so it’s easy to root against him.
Unfortunately, he’s also practically the main character? Guy Pearce’s Reynolds gets more screentime than all of the other characters, which makes absolutely no sense. Rather than diving into more of the vampire, supernatural storyline, we get to hear Reynolds slander immigrants and anyone who isn’t white time and time again. It was a very baffling decision to invest more time into this despicable villain’s life than the other characters.
Throughout its entire runtime, Sunrise lacks any sort of direction. The vampire plotline didn’t even seem to be the focus, and ultimately the flick never really figured out what to focus on as it just kept bouncing around. Over a third of the way in, I didn’t really know where it was heading, and even in the final act there wasn’t any sense of urgency at all. Eventually you can sense where things are going, but it almost felt like a compilation of scenes to get there, rather than actually building up to something.
Narratively, this was told in the least compelling way possible. When there was a suspenseful scene, it would be followed by 10-15 minutes of exposition. The order in which things were told could’ve been changed to make this more effective.
Sunrise is a 94-minute movie that feels like three hours. The story drifts along aimlessly and forgets to ever explore the lore behind its most compelling character. The pieces were there to make a solid movie, but nothing ever comes together here at all. I could keep rambling my frustrations about Sunrise, but there’s no point in doing that. It’s not a good movie — plain and simple. You’ll be fine sitting this one out.
Rating: .5 out of 5
