Rating of
2/4
"Night Watch" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 08/06/16
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 the rather naff industrial-goth soundtrack and references to videogames and Buffy The Vampire Slayer and it all feels a little juvenile. It does have some nice sequences and it never bored me, but by the end I couldn't help wondering what all the fuss had been about. Constantine did something very similar and did it a lot better.
