Night Watch

By Daniel Fienberg, Zap2It.com | February 16, 2006

Night Watch

Discuss this story now

It's Good vs. Evil in the Streets of Moscow -- Again

When "Brotherhood of the Wolf" was released in 2001, I recall my immediate reaction being "The movie is incoherent nonsense, but I'd love to see what the director could do with a bigger budget -- can't wait until Hollywood corrupts him."

The jury is still out on Christophe Gans, whose "Silent Hill" comes out this spring. I had a similar response to the phantasmagoric Russian film "Night Watch." I don't remember an iota of the plot, a single memorable performance or anything emotional or thematic from the movie, but I'm not surprised that every studio wants a piece of director Timur Bekmambetov. He's worth watching.

Based on Sergei Lukyanenko's novels, "Night Watch" launches a trilogy that has become a sensation in its native land, where this film topped "Spider-Man 2" at the box office. The film sets up an elaborate mythology regarding the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness, two armies of supernaturally gifted soldiers who have had an uneasy truce for 1000 years. Their delicate balance is in jeopardy because of an ancient prophesy about a "Great One," who will prompt an apocalyptic war. There are vampires and witches and shape-shifters and wizards, plus blaring rock music to accompany our characters as they battle in the streets and slums of Moscow.

If there's a specific plot, it involves Anton (Konstantin Khabensky), a member of the benign Night Watch who has always battled his own dark hungers. He's protecting the vulnerable Yegor (Dima Martynov), a boy who may also have powers. Anton's allies include an owl that becomes an attractive woman and a guy who transforms into a tiger. He's forced to contend with a disgruntled bloodsucker and a fearsome general who really likes video games.

"Night Watch" is a pastiche of so many different comic books, movies, television shows that it's impossible to keep track. It jumps genres without warning or hesitation, with an audacity that may be viewed as groundbreaking by some viewers, though it's just as likely to prompt headaches in others. Most of the iconography has its roots in American popular culture, but the Russian settings, characterized by urban decay and post-Communist poverty, give the madness a distinctive twist.

Bekmambetov made "Night Watch" for a mind-boggling $4 million and while some of the computer effects are flat and obvious, the movie is littered with bold imagery. Trucks flip through the air, normal people become transparent roadmaps of veins in the eyes of vampires, the camera scurries and soars with abandon. As an added bonus for non-Russian speakers, the subtitles are designed to enhance the movie -- sometimes they shatter, sometimes they bleed, sometimes they interact with the visuals.

For all of the film's aesthetic spunk, though, the ethical quandaries of this universe -- issues of fate, free will and human nature -- are as banal as anything that bogged down the last two "Matrix" movies.

Where will Bekmambetov go from here? Hopefully whatever's next will be a realization of this potential, a step forward.