By
Mitch Emerson
June 8, 2007 - 18:15
|
Originally I wanted to see
Night
Watch because of the effects that were shown in the trailer. What
I got was an interesting and slightly chaotic tale of two groups of
“Others”: Light Others and Dark Others. Beings with powers such
as shape shifting, vampirism, and the ability to switch bodies just
to name a few. Each group has a police-like outfit that was created
to watch the other. Light Others have Night Watch and Dark Others
have Day Watch.
Day Watch continues the story of the struggle
of these two opposing forces. This is just a general outline of what
is going on in both films.
Night Watch focused on the good
guys, while
Day Watch focuses on the bad guys. There is a
third movie in the making called
Dusk Watch which I am still
pretty excited to see.
Great effects punctuate the hot mess
that is
Day Watch. I say hot mess because being a Russian
film, there is definitely a different style to these films. There is
a lack of character development that hurts it as well as some
confusing plot elements such as multiple mini-storylines and some
unnecessary scenes. Plus the ending may seem to be a letdown for some
but I believe that it opens the doors wide open for the next film,
unlike a certain Nic Cage movie that I won't mention (
Next).
The difference is knowing there will be another film and not just
leaving the audience hanging suspended with their cries of “What
the f***!”
Just like the first,
Day Watch
is subtitled so it is kind of hard to get a feeling as to how well
the acting is, but nobody looked bad. Costume designs, set pieces,
props and such were great. And, an interesting thing continued from
the first film, is the subtitles themselves. If two characters are
onscreen, the subtitles are on the side closest to the character
speaking them. Also, there is a scene where a butcher picks up a hunk
of raw meat, calls a woman a bitch, throws it against the wall and as
it slides down reveals the word “bitch” in blood. Many other
little tricks with the subtitles help make the movie a little more
fun to read as I usually don't like subtitles.
I can't really say that it's better
than the first or even equal to, but I enjoyed it and most
horror/action/fantasy fans will too, if they can get their heads
around the different style of film that is
Day Watch. A lot of
people are saying that this series of films aren't that good because
they are branching off from the novels that they are based on. Those
are the people who get really upset if films don't follow the books
exactly, so keep that in mind when reading other reviews of these
films. Me, I say be your own judge.
Visit the films website at
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/daywatch/
Until the world ends,
keep reading
Mitch E.
mitch@comicbookbin.com
ComicBookBin
