Guardiões do Dia

Let me say first and foremost do not even think of viewing this movie unless you've seen the first film. Simply put this movie just starts and goes, assuming that you've seen the first film. There are no reintroductions, just forward motion so be prepared, see Nightwatch.

Picking up some time after Night Watch ends this film concerns two parallel stories Anton's search for a means of righting all that has gone wrong since he joined the Watch, and his framing for the murder of one of the Day Watch. The two things are not of course, that far apart as everyone soon finds out.

This is epic story telling and it covers a great deal of ground. Do not blink or go to the bathroom with out being able to pause this since this moves like the wind. Unfortunately even with close attention a good deal of the plot is going to be clouded. There are lots of characters, lots of plot points many carried over from the first film (which in retrospect I should have watched before I dove into this film). You can fee the film's origins as a novel bleeding off the screen giving this version of Moscow a very real sense of place.

The action and craftsmanship of this film is almost without equal. The set pieces are spectacular, there are things in this movie to make your jaw drop open (the influx of American money can be seen on the screen in sequences that top the first film). The cast is amazing, creating some really good guys and some vile bad ones. Its first rate all around.

I really did like this film a great deal, though I am a tad disappointed. I don't know whether its the fact that the story is too big for its two and a half running time, or if its the fact that it doesn't go where I expected it to go. I think I'm going to have to see it again, preferably when I can see this not long after the first film.

If you saw and liked the first film see this. If you weren't crazy about the first film you may want to try it. If you haven't seen the first film see that first.

Well, I watched Day Watch with my American girlfriend in a St. Petersburg cinema a few hours ago, and we both enjoyed it. The relatively huge success of of the first episode obviously allowed the producers to pump more cash into this second installment, and it shows throughout the film. The CG sequences are slicker and more impressive, and so is pretty much everything else, including the consistently confident directing. Even the fact that the premise is so annoyingly weak doesn't spoil the fun as much as it did in the first film.

As a Russian though, the thing I liked best was the unmistakable Russian-ness of the movie. As far as film-making is concerned, I don't normally mean that as a compliment, but with Day Watch it is different. While it can definitely appeal to a wider international audience (my girlfriend, albeit a bit of a Russophile, is an indication of that), it is at the same time literally packed with all sorts of clever wordplay and references to various realities of Russian life, ranging from political satire to hilariously blatant product placement.

Even though I can enjoy a less obnoxious art-house film every now and then, on the whole I prefer clever commercial movies, and Day Watch falls into that category very neatly.

I must admit that before this film I was never a real fan of the Watcher series. A Russian friend of mine advised me to watch Nochnoy Dozor. I was impressed, but hardly blown away. So I went into this film expecting another worthless sequel Hollywood seems to be churning out by the dozen. But this is not Hollywood, and this is not another worthless sequel. In fact, this is surprisingly amazing. Every aspect of the original have been amplified up ten times until you can almost feel the room reverberating. We're spoilt with so much cinematic impact right from the start. The CGI landscapes are breathtaking and the epic battles are just as panoramic as something out of a LoTR film.

The cast is kept the same as the original, all still pitch-perfect in their roles. I can't imagine anyone other than Khabensky playing our helplessly flawed hero. The premise might seem overused (Light versus Dark) but the background plot is actually very unique. I love how the leaders can joke around with each other when taking time off being sworn mortal enemies. And you can tell that the film is a book adaptation by how deep the story goes. Very few aspects are covered completely, leaving you to wonder what motives have some of the characters really got, and what was decidedly cut out of the film version. The soundtrack is one of the most erratic ones I've ever heard but works perfectly for this film. One scene a romantic love score, the next some adrenaline pumping heavy metal, immediately followed by a chirpy joke song. I honestly can't say much about the script since I don't understand Russian, but I feel that there are some in-jokes that would be hilarious if only I understood them. And that's the surprising thing about the film - despite all of its mind-blowing action, there is still time for the writer to fit in some matured dry humour!

I've now been thoroughly converted into a Watcher fan. The first thing I'll do is hunt down some English copies of the books. It feels to me as if the first film is just an introduction to these characters and leads up to the second film where the action heats up. A little surprised by the conclusive ending but can't wait to see what they'll do with it in the next film!

Phew! What an imagination these boys have!! This entire experience is very dream-like in that the strangest things make sense in this universe, you can flush yourself down a toilet, or perhaps drive a car in a MOST unusual manner, or maybe slip into another dimension to escape your enemy.

This is a world where dark ones and light ones live in an uneasy truce among the unsuspecting living. Once you get your head around this world's rules it starts to make sense and it becomes an action drama like any other, yet unlike any other. And for that, you should see it- but don't expect to understand it very much at first.. it helps if you saw the first film of this series- Night Watch, but that film sucked in comparison to this one in my opinion- and maybe that was just budgetary constraints but hey- it still sucked.

The good thing about having seen Night Watch is that it will make you like this one a whole lot more because you will understand what's going on and then focus on the plot and the action- which is quite an orgy of bizarre circumstance.

So suffer through Night Watch, then watch this and I think you will get a really unique experience out of this- it's fantasy, vampires, spell-casters and a very omnipresent Russia woven into this all. It's a must see because of it's uniqueness and to be forgiven for the occasional stupidity or clumsiness in transition it presents, it has a unique beauty that needs preservation just like a Russian. :-)

I must applaud the director for creating a scene with women and high action where you would have expected to see a man. When you see the movie- you will see what I mean, and it's just one of many of the clever and confounding -dream-rules apply- plot twists this thing will throw at you with total abandon.

Night Watch personally was neither a great or terrible film, if anything it was kind of a mixed bag. Its sequel Day Watch was lacking in a lot of areas and while Night Watch was far from great it was better than this. There are definitely things to like about Day Watch. Like its predecessor it is stunning to look at, it's beautifully shot and the scenery is very Russian, very like Russian fairy-tale quality. The special effects are also great, and while occasionally erratic so is the music score with its fair share of rousing and haunting moments. If there's anything also that Day Watch does better than Night Watch is that the action sequences have more energy and cohesion, some of the stunts are a wonder to behold. The acting is not very consistent though, there are no complaints about Konstantin Khabensky who's great but supporting roles could have a tendency to feel over-compensated(Viktor Verzhbitsky) or vapid(Maria Poroshina). The story is a mess, the actual structure is very dense but more of a problem was that there was almost too much going on or written in. Things often got confused or unexplained, even both, while the pacing gets tedious towards the end and the film feels thirty minutes too long, not to mention the cop-out of an ending. There is a great Russian fantasy/sci-fi atmosphere evoked, but the overlong length, drawn out pacing and messy narrative make a film devoid of wonder, thrills or genuine excitement outside of the action sequences, special effects and stunts. The characters are fantasy clichés and next to nothing is done with them, we know they are heroes and villains and that there's a conflict of light and dark(good vs.evil) but little else. The script is the same as the story, often underwritten and stilted with the humour feeling out-of-place. The direction is the kind that does a great job with the visual side of things but any of the assets that give substance are largely ignored, it's a little more refined this time around but can be both erratic and ponderous. Again, not a terrible directing job but a case of pluses and minuses. In conclusion, no problems visually and musically but the script and story are another story put together. 4/10 Bethany Cox