Review: Day Watch
Day Watch is the sequel to Night Watch and continues the epic battle between the forces of Light and Dark. Unfortunately it goes straight into a twilight where nothing much makes sense at all. Timur Bekmambetov definately gives some impressive visual effects during the course of the film, but the rest of the movie just bored me to death. I have no trouble with complex storylines in most movies, but this one is extreme to follow.
Night Watch was full of women who transformed into beasties, guys who could lift trucks, and a strange alternate dimension called “the Gloom” where the bad people did their villany. It was a visually amazing movie, but had a confusing story and this one is no different
The first film ended with Night Watch member Anton’s son becoming the “Gifted One” and joining the forces of evil. The sequel was to answer all the questions after the first bit of confusion. Instead it left me asking more questions as the credits rolled.
Anton ends up covering up for his sons crimes while at the same time falling in love with his tranee partner Svetlana, who’s the “Gifted One” for the forces of Light. We also learn about a magical piece of chalk that allows someone to rewrite history. I wish I had it to get a certain 133 minutes of my day back personally.
Spaced through the movie, Bekmambetov pulls off some amazing special effects, like when a woman drives her red Mazda RX-8 along the side of a building, through a window and then down the hall. I couldn’t help but think the whole time that possibly the problem was just me. This is a Russian film and maybe I just didn’t have the proper appreciation for it, since the acting seemed flat and dull. Maybe that’s how the rest of the world sees the Matrix movies with Keanu Reeves, flat and dull. Errr, yeah…anyway…
There were glorious special effects and some jaw-dropping scenes but it was definately hard to watch. I can’t imagine any of the more casual movie-watchers like my friends or family even staying in the room more then 15 minutes with this movie on. After an hour, even I was fighting myself from grabbing the remote. My personal battle on that front became even more exciting then the movie itself.
The special effects are worth 5 stars but the combined with the acting and the confusing story, I have to drop that rating…a lot. I have pretty low hopes for the third installment that’s coming called Dusk Watch. I’ll call it No Watch.
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