Full Movie Reviews
Rating of
2/4
"Night Watch" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 08/06/2016
There was a lot of hype surrounding this, Russia's take on the vampire myth in which the forces of light and darkness are policed by a group of shape shifting "others" in modern day Moscow. I must admit I was expecting a lot from this film but was rather disappointed. The plot is rather cliched and too easily resolved, with very predictable twists; in fact the so-called ending seemed like yet another film setting itself up as a franchise rather than presenting a credible self-contained story. There isn't that much in the way of action, and what there is is not particularly well handled as the director throws in far too many needless The Fast And The Furious style visual gimmicks; horror fans will also feel unsatisfied as there isn't much in the way of gore or frights either. Add to this …
Rating of
2/4
Well, It Has Artistic Subtitles...
Franz Patrick - wrote on 11/29/2008
I can’t believe this film broke all kinds of box-office records in Russia. It’s not a bad film, per se, it’s just full of mediocrity. Interestingly enough, I saw “Day Watch,” its sequel (which I thought was horrible), first and ended up liking “Night Watch” more even though the special effects are less great and the story is less in scope. What I like most about this film is the relationship between Konstantin Khabensky (the protagonist) and Dmitry Martynov (the potential bringer of the apocalypse). Even though they’re not related by blood, I saw them as father and son because the scenes that they were in together had a certain sparkle and heart. It was also nice to see Aleksei Chadov as a badass young vampire being introduced here and had a bigger role in the sequel. One …
Rating of
3/4
A Unique Vampire Movie, Better Than Hollywood
Josh C - wrote on 11/22/2008
I accidentally watched Day Watch (the sequel) first. I don't think this diminished this movie though. I was actually happy to see the same actors and same plot, but just a continuation of the plot. Many sequels are loosely related but this one is entirely dependent on Night Watch.
The movie itself is great. The acting is good, the story is solid and unique, and the special effects are great. However, the one thing I noticed was the subtitles. The subtitles in this movie, because it is Russian, was unique. Instead of blandly showing the subtitles they actually made it part of the movie. It wasn't uncommon to have the subtitles go behind objects, get bigger based on the volume of their voice or even slant and fade away because of a scared whisper. It was this small effect that struck me …
