I watched Night Watch last night on the recommendation of Greg’s brother… alas I wasn’t particularly impressed, despite the half-decent sounding blurb on the back of the DVD case.

This is a Russian language film (available in the UK as subtitled and/or dubbed) and is part of a trilogy and loosely follows the first part of the book of the same name.

The synopsis is as below:

Set in contemporary Moscow, NIGHT WATCH (NOCHNOI DOZOR) uncovers the other-world battle that upholds a 1000-year-old truce between the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness. For centuries, the undercover members of the Night Watch have policed the world’s Dark Ones –the vampires, witches, shape-shifters and sorcerers that wage treachery in the night — while the Dark Ones have a Day Watch that in turn polices the forces of Light. The fate of humanity rests in this delicate balance between good and evil but that fate is in jeopardy …

Ancient prophecy foretells that one day a “Great One” will arrive who can end the apocalyptic battle between Light and Dark conclusively. That time has arrived in Moscow – but which side will the Great One choose?

Source: http://www.cinema.com/film/9188/night-watch/synopsis.phtml

Sounds great yeah?

Well unfortunately, I didn’t find it nearly half as engaging as the film could have been, and was somewhat disappointed.

The main reason that I have decided to blog about this film however, is due to the cool animated subtitles that theatrical version of the film has – alas FOX seem to have removed all of the clips on YouTube. As an example, a lad gets a nose-bleed in the swimming pool and the subtitles are then made of blood and disolve into the water etc.

That said, perhaps most disappointing was the lack of technical detail on the film itself – especially when they have gone all out on making fab subtitles!

At one point, the whole of Moscow is plunged into a power cut… yet, as the lights all come back on, you can see aeroplanes literally just taking off from the airport…! As if! Tsk! That’s just sloppy!

All in all, perhaps not a terrible film, but it could have been substantially better in my opinion!