Night Watch

[raum]

There is a movie that I rented called Night Watch. It is Russian overdub... and the first of a Trilogy.

Synopsis.

Forces of Light and Darkness are easily matched. So they call a truce, lest all be destroyed. Each agrees to a few tenets of the truce, including Others (other than human) have the right to choose Light of Darkness of their own free will. None can be forced, or coaxed. The NightWatch are those of the Light who make sure the Dark adhere to the treaty. The DayWatch are those of the Darkness who make sure the Light adhere to the treaty.

Enter the story of a member of the Night Watch, Anton. He's not a vampire, but he's like one. He's a Like-Other who was tricked to becoming like the Dark by a Witch who convinced him to drink blood and vodka in order to cast a deadly spell, before she was stopped by the Night Watch. So, he occasionally thirsts for blood. But his thirst for vodka knows no end. And unlike a True Vampire, his powers are very limited. Anything more would be a spoiler.

better to just see the trailer: http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/nwnd/

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Soundtrack : Worth owning even if you don't see the movie. Heavy tracks, haunting melodies, pure genuine industrial grit. You taste the ashes of a dirty cigarette on a brown-rain soaked street corner in Moscow. Some scenes were so heavy hitting music wise, I couldn't stay sitting down. Others were in my dreams that night.

Special Effects : Some genuine stop film animation and model work, but mostly CGI. This is effective beyond belief. In the movie, there is a realm of Gloom, an Other world of excusive darkness, think an Astral Plane, where the void can affect you, and make you forever a part of it, so exposure must be limited. There are some amazing effects in this, much different than many western studios. I didn't feel the effects had a cheesy look to them, they became a surreal dreamscape painted on an ancient myth.

Action: Beautiful scenes of ancient armies amassing against eash other, which interplay without equal. Besides those epic scenes, everything feels real. One "special attack" in the whole movie, which is believable. Nothing pisses me off more than a movie where all vampires know Kung-Fu, and all combat is expert. This is legitimate "fuk yoo up" when they scrap. Also, there is a "magickal truck" (think NightWatch Mobile) that is there for a reason I will discuss in a minute. There is a single scene that made us both look at each other and say "DAYUM!!"

Cast : not really noteworthy to me, but qualified for the parts they play. Dialogue is hard to judge, because it is overdub. At least they still have accents, well most of them. Stage blocking is well done, and all the characters seem to "feel" they are moving the right way. I hate when someone playing a graceful person is hardly capable of walking across the room.

Characters : most are mythical. A few seem token, alot seem to need more development. Prolly because this is a foreign film, and intended to be a trilogy.

Story: MYTHICAL. Particularly, the story of Perseus, the half God. From the Owl of Artemis (in this movie, a twist) given to him by Zeus, to the ineffectual weapon and the need to use his reflection to fight the Gorgon Medusa, to the Chariot of the Sun (in the form of a Yellow Electrician's Truck), this has all the classic elements of the Greek Myths, in a dark euro-urban setting. It also seems to include some other movie elements (including one suspiciously like the story of Anakin Skywalker, parts of it seem heavily influenced by Constatine and The Matrix, it has a single element like Underworld, and one could argue the truck is a bit too much like the Harry Potter bus), but if anything they make it more familiar in a good way. A haunting of romance helps make the predictable twist damnright obvious, but there is not much more than that.

This first of the trilogy doesn't end on a happy note, and there are few scenes of self-mutilation (for a reason pretty well explained) and some very well done gore and ick required of a movie with vampires, shapeshifters, and the like.

I give it 5.5 out of 7 days, and a lazy afternoon. My girl, unfamiliar with most of the mythical references and the historical authenticity of the occult symbols, and with more conventional music tastes, gave it a 4, and considered the ending "disappointing and open-ended." She also didn't know it was the first of three when she made that judgement. She liked it until the one line of dialogue ending that defined the end of this act.

[Sir Jig-A-Lot]

Am still waitin' on the 3rd film..