Day Watch (2007)

Pretty Good

Boring

Admirable film.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Sergey Lukyanenko's Watch series depicts a war between Light Forces and Dark Forces. Timur Bekmambetov filmed the first entry, "Nochnoy dozor" (Night Watch) in 2004 and then released the second entry, "Dnevnoy dozor" (Day Watch) two years later. All that I can say is that it's not like anything that you've ever seen. This isn't simply a plain old vampire story ("Twilight" doesn't count for anything). It incorporates history; how many movies have mentioned Tamerlane? And some of those action scenes are enough to shock even the most hardened action fan.I should say that the movie isn't a masterpiece. It's an innovative movie, and an entertaining one. The last half hour has to be seen to be believed. If you're into dark fantasy - think NBC's "Grimm" - then this will be the movie for you.

I saw NIGHT WATCH and I loved it, I saw DAY WATCH and I loved it more. All I can say is, WOW. It's hard to make a good sequel to film that already was fantastic, but they did it.The characters, again, show how well developed they are and, again, the actors show how good they are. I can't say much about the special effects but sure there is a slight improvement to the first one, but I don't give a damn about that. This film isn't about special effects, but more about what makes a good film. Well developed characters, very good acting, a good story, a good director, ... what every film should be about.Just to make one thing clear, it's not a perfect film, but it is as close as a film like that can get. I recommend it highly.

I enjoyed Night Watch when I watched it recently so looked forward to seeing this sequel. I was not disappointed, in fact I think I enjoyed this one slightly more although that might be due to this one having the correct English subtitles, not just the "English for the hearing impaired" ones that described every sound.The film opens in the distant past with Tamerlane attacking a remote fortress to capture The Chalk of Fate, an item with powers that enables the person who writes with it to change history. We then move to the present where Anton and his new partner Svetlana are called to the scene of an attack on woman, they give chase to the assailant and Anton recognises him as his son when he snatches his hat off. Day Watch leader Zavulon sends Alisa to see Anton to explain get his son will be executed for breaking the truce if Anton doesn't retrieve the evidence from. While he is doing that a murder takes place for which he is framed.In order to clear his name and prevent an apocalypse he must take drastic measures including switching bodies with Olga and then seek the Chalk of Fate. Of course he isn't the only person after the Chalk and the Day Watch have their own plans which if realised will not be good for humanity.Once again the action is exciting although I thought the scene where Alisa drives a car on the side of a building went beyond believability even in a film of this type. The acting seemed good to me although not speaking Russian I can't judge their delivery that well. I'd not have guessed that Zhanna Friske, who plays Alisa, was a singer rather than an actress if I hadn't read it here. As with "Night Watch" there isn't anything deep about this film, but if you want to relax and have some mindless fun you can do a lot worse than this.The DVD I saw included an English sound track so those people who aren't keen on subtitles can watch the film too, I can't comment on how good the dub is though as I've only watched the subtitled version.

I couldn't tell you why I returned to this saga after being immensely disappointed by Night Watch, but I did. Again I was drawn in by the same misguided hype that surrounded the first instalment.Who are these simple, easily satisfied cinema-goers that drool over basic gimicks such as the alternative subtitles in Night Watch? What about the convoluted, silly plot, complete lack of interesting characters and vague half-formed ideas? Anyway, enough of the first movie. The second, somehow manages to plum new depths of pointlessness. Again the plot is needlessly complicated in order to direct focus from the fact that there isn't really one.The characters can never arrest the attention due to the dialogue being translated (badly) from Russian, leaving sub-70's cop show acting. I can only surmise that it was more realistic in it's native tongue.For a fantasy film there seem to be very little fantastical elements, but rather some vague hints that at any moment now something might happen.The editing is by far the most insurmountable issue here though, by turns deeply serious then, suddenly, comedic. Absurd.It's all such a waste that it's hard to tell what the directors were aiming to achieve here. Hopefully it wasn't what we ended up with.