Daywatch - 4/5
Firstly, a few words of warning - this is quite a difficult movie to follow even if you have seen the first instalment (Nightwatch - released a couple of years ago), if you haven't I would guess it would be fairly incomprehensible. The reason for this is that the movies are based on a trilogy of books - the first film covered just half of the first book, in the second the try to cram the most important bits of the remaining two and half books. This, unfortunately, leaves little room for further character development, motivation or explanation - its all rather rushed.
Secondly, the world that's created here might not be everybody's cup of tea with mystical powers, vampires, etc..., but despite its trappings and being rather gory at times, this is not a horror movie. There is little intention to scare the audience, but rather to enthrall with a gripping fantasy adventure, albeit one set in modern day Russia where forces of light and darkness battle in the midst of an unknowing population. In fact, the whole thing could be seen as an extended anti-abortion allegory. OK, that's stretching a point a wee bit, but the plot is driven by the main character's attempt to atone for (admittedly unknowingly) attempting to kill his unborn son.
Thirdly, you have to stiffle a few chuckles at a few pieces of clunky exposition and the fact that something called "the chalk of destiny" plays a major role in the plot. I'm sure it sounds better in the original Russian.
If you can get past all that, how good a film is it. Nightwatch arrived as a breath of fresh air a couple of years ago with a unique vision and some breathtaking scenes and special effects all achieved on a very small (by Western standards) budget. Daywatch is more of a flawed entity - as already mentioned it is far too rushed, with just too much plot crammed in. However, it retains many of the strengths of the original - the effects still put man much bigger budgetted films to shame, the action is gripping, there's touches of wry humour and a creative use of subtitles which only Tony Scott's Man on Fire has come close to matching in Western cinema.
Whilst borrowing much from more familiar films, writer/director Timur Bekmambetov has created both a mythology and a look that is distinctively Russian in feel and does come across as something fresh and different and thrilling. What Daywatch shows is that it would have made a great second part of a trilogy. Instead, it's very entertaining, gripping and original, but flawed by attempting to lever too much in.
4 comments:
Are you sure that the film tries to squeeze in two and half books? I read that it was (loosely) based on the second half of the 'Night Watch' book. Certainly the film doesn't sound at all like the reviews of the book 'Day Watch' that I've read.
Not having read the books I couldn't say for sure, but that's certainly what everything I've read about the film has suggested and it definitely feels like there's one heck of a lot more than a half a book's worth of plot crammed in here.
Hmm, wikipedia agrees with me, which probably means you're right!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Watch
Well, IMDb agrees with you. It's a bit complicated cos the books apparently aren't novels but collections of novellas, so in pure speculation my guess would be the film takes the main plots of the second half of 'Night Watch' book, but also includes elements from the other two books? Whatever the point remains that it would maybe be better more spread out or with less crammed in.
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