Day Watch (2007)
Review by Noel
In June of ’06, I bought without hesitation the first of writer/director Timur Bekmambetov’s Watch Trilogy Night Watch (Nochoi Dozor), well aware of what a hit it was in Russia and hearing advanced buzz about it on the web comparing it to Star Wars, and using words relegated to spiritual epiphany when describing it.
Maybe because there was such advance hype about it before I watched that perhaps…the movie I was watching seemed not to be the same one I had been hearing about. I have taken my own expectations into account as I write that but-
…At its best Night Watch has stretches that are, very cool to look at (my favorite being a bolt from a plane falling, falling, falling), but-
As a story, at its worst, Night Watch seems like it was written by a D and D geek who got his ass kicked in High School (the kind that can spew LOTR minutiae at a frighteningly inhuman rate and volume) and then spent the rest of his post-high school years playing WOW. He got either really skinny or really fat and instead of blossoming and being the kind of person that has more money than Oprah and could kill any one of us with the brush of keystroke…grew up to think Night Watch is something we could/should take…seriously.
I don’t dislike the movie, it just makes me wonder what other movie-going options our brothers and sisters in Russia are have that this makes so much money…
Still, it’s not Eragon-bad, but few things really are…
And so we get to Day Watch, which is just like Night Watch…only longer. Much longer.
It almost goes without saying that you should watch Night before Day or else you will get confused. Or…more confused.
I will say that I did like Day Watch a little more than Night, and as I write this I hope I can explain why.
The plot of Day Watch…
I’ll confess, after I watched this I thought I’d cheat and just paraphrase the back of the DVD to get some kind of coherent synopsis, but I read it a laughed because it was a lot more vague that anything I’d thought up.
So…here goes:
Our hero Anton ( Konstantin Khabensky) and his new trainee/girlfriend Svetlana (Mariya Poroshina, the “cursed” woman from Night Watch, who apparently cleans up very nicely) struggle to keep the balance between the Light Ones and the Dark Ones (SUCH an original concept) from breaking the TRUCE.
Back Track: The TRUCE is that no Light or Dark One can kill each other, because if they did it would begin another war which would end up destroying the world or some such gobbledygook.
But someone is killing Dark Ones, and making it look like Anton did it. Someone…who wants to break the TRUCE. But who is it? Is it a Dark one? A Light One? Someone who was Light that turned Dark? Did we really need 2 and a quarter hours to find out?
Oh yeah, and somehow something called the CHALK OF FATE (I could not make this up even if I wanted to) ties into this.
What works about Day Watch:
1. Easily the best/funniest sequence in the movie- A car drives UP a building, and then along its SIDE. Then, it drives INTO the building, along various halls and floors, looking for a particular room. And as the driver finds the room she wants, she SPEEDS the car up…
And the best part is, the Dark One guarding the door says as deadpan as he can: “Stop. You cannot enter here.” I had to reset the chapter, because I was laughing too much to take it all in. Now, I respect any person who does his/her job in a professional manner, but if it was my job to watch a door and there was a fucking CAR coming towards me…I would just get out of the way. But that’s just me.
2. Galina Tyunina- as Olga (an Owl in Night Watch), she has some nice moments as a woman, playing a man trapped in a woman’s body. Oh yeah. There’s some body switching that goes on (apparently Dark and Light Ones can do that…if it’s convenient to the plot)
3. An Asian guy dipped in gold who looks like a cross between Goldmember, Buddha…and an Academy Award (once again, I couldn’t make this up if I tried).
4. The Ending- within the confines of its own ridiculousness is kind of touching. It would have been perfect to end the Watch series with…but apparently Dusk Watch is coming soon to a Russian theater near…or not so near us.
5. At birthday party, the revelation of the Dark Ones. Very cool visuals.
6. The Twin Enforcers. These guys mean business.
7. The Gloom- you have to see the movie to know what Gloom is…but it’s one of the very best things to look at…
What doesn’t work:
1. Yawn. Like I said, this movie clocks in at 2 and a quarter hours, yet feels much longer. Do they not have editors in Russia? Or maybe one that realizes, you do not have to keep ALL the footage shot during principal photography…
2. None of the attempts at humor really work, yet every attempt at seriousness I found funny. Probably not the tone that was expected.
3. No Pamela Anderson or Yasmine Bleeth jogging across a beach in jigglevision
4. A subplot involving a Dark One and her vampire paramour (Oh yeah, did I mention that there are Vampires in these movies?) does nothing to serve the movie and only serves to add to the running time. Cut. Cut. Cut.
5. How many shots of bats swirling do we need before it gets old?
6. None of these movies are actually scary.
7. The CHALK OF FATE- yup, it feels as stupid to write it as it does to say and think it.
Like I said Day Watch is an improvement over Night (thanks to the last 10 minutes), although those of you who didn’t like Night…probably won’t like Day. But if you did like Night Watch, and you have a lot of time on your hands, then devote rental to this Day…and hope Dusk Watch doesn’t suck.
Popularity: 3% [?]
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