This Russian horror/fantasy film pits darkness and light against each other using snazzy CGI visuals to create an extraordinary atmosphere of a dank, gloomy city wrestling with dread.
This Russian horror/fantasy film pits darkness and light against each other using snazzy CGI visuals to create an extraordinary atmosphere of a dank, gloomy city wrestling with dread.
audience
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liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 99,314
Two bands of warriors, one good and one evil, battle to keep the peace in Moscow in this cat's cradle thriller from Russia. In 1342, the Warriors of Light (led by Gesser, Lord of Light) and the Warriors of Darkness (led by Zavulon, General of Darkness) declare a truce under which each side will form a law enforcement team to monitor the other side's activities. The Warriors of Light, who enforce the powers of good, patrol the Night Watch, while the Warriors of Darkness, who openly embrace evil,
staff the Day Watch. Each watch group also contains "Others," mortals with supernatural powers from both sides that include vampires, shapeshifters, witches, and the like. Prophecy suggests that one day, a Great One will surface and permanently extinguish the threat of an apocalyptic war between the two sides by upsetting the balance, lending greater power to either good or evil (depending on his or her choice) and thus determining the future of mankind forever. In 1992, Night Watch member and Warrior of Light Anton Gordesky (Konstantin Khabensky) discovers he's an "other" amid a sting on a witch. Cut to twelve years later. In 2004, Anton still works the Night Watch, but now he's a vampiric warrior who drinks blood. One night, while on patrol, he rescues a young boy named Egor (Dima Martinov) from a handful of Dark Warriors, but in the process, he encounters Svetlana (Maria Poroshina), a woman who acts as a "funnel" -- a conduit for the powers of evil. Anton reflects on the prophecy regarding "The Great One," and begins to suspect that Svetlana and Egor may be harbingers of this fateful event. As the first installment in a Russian trilogy, Night Watch (aka Nochnoj Dozor) was a massive box-office success in its native Russia, and is followed by the second installment, Day Watch; it was released in the U.S. with a heavy prologue and epilogue, and animated subtitles that alternately scuttle across the screen, dissolve, shudder, and explode.20th Century Fox not only purchased United States distribution rights for the film, but also announced plans for a Westernized remake. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
This mostly incoherent, enormously eccentric helping of mayhem breaks into so many fragments that watching the movie can be a bit like trying to assemble the pieces from several jigsaw puzzles.
Night Watch was one of the most popular movies ever released in Russia. That just proves there's no accounting for taste, in film or in human sacrifice.
... director Timur Bekmambetov makes excellent use of CGI to portray the paranormal events but avoids the silly martial arts extravagance of the UNDERWORLD movies.
This muddled mess about the forces of (what else?) dark and light can barely hold itself together long enough to rip-off far better science fiction movies.
The entire production seems intent on creating a mood and trapping the audience in it until the very last frame is shown, and for a fantasy film, that's how it should be done.
The film is fascinating - albeit sluggish - until the final reel. At that point, the vampire-hunter hero makes a crucial decision at odds with everything we know about his character.
Former music-video director Timur Bekmambetov cleverly toys with moral ambiguities and demoniac CGI effects like a death-metal puppeteer, though he takes it too seriously for such a shallow entertainment.
Intriguing enough to build hope that the trilogy's next two parts can make this a reverse Matrix saga: A series that becomes more clear and compelling as it goes forward.
The resulting concoction will likely baffle anyone who isn't already a fantasy/horror aficionado, but those viewers who enjoy one of these genres will get a kick out of the universe Bekmambetov has created here.
There was a lot of hype surrounding this, Russia's take on the vampire myth in which the forces of light and darkness are policed by a group of shape shifting "others" in modern day Moscow. I must admit I was expecting a lot from this film but was rather disappointed. The plot is rather cliched and too easily resolved,
with very predictable twists; in fact the so-called ending seemed like yet another film setting itself up as a franchise rather than presenting a credible self-contained story. There isn't that much in the way of action, and what there is is not particularly well handled as the director throws in far too many needless The Fast And The Furious style visual gimmicks; horror fans will also feel unsatisfied as there isn't much in the way of gore or frights either. Add to this the rather naff industrial-goth soundtrack and references to videogames and Buffy The Vampire Slayer and it all feels a little juvenile. It does have some nice sequences and it never bored me, but by the end I couldn't help wondering what all the fuss had been about. Constantine did something very similar and did it a lot better.
March 17, 2007
xGary Xx
Super Reviewer
Incoherent, messy, rushed, and more than a little cheesy, but nonetheless has its visual thrills and inventiveness to compensate for all of its flaws, at least most of the time. The story is the part that's cheesy, pitting light and against dark in a modern day setting with vampire's and humans called "others". The
different is if you choose the light or dark side. Light others are called night watchers because they make sure the dark ones do not break the peace treaty among the two, while dark ones are called day watchers and do the same thing for the light others. It's an interesting take on the old light vs. dark, but the movie doesn't know when to take interest in certain subplots and when to not. Many subplots lead to quick and unsatisfying ending, and the finale is incredibly anti-climactic. It does have a few twists I didn't see coming though, and the movie is never boring. It's frustrating and fascinating in almost equal measure.
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