Day Watch

The second film in the “Russian Star War” saga debuted in Los Angeles June 1st weekend. It is a sequel to the 2004 film Night Watch, featuring the same cast. It is based on the second and the third part of Sergey Lukyanenko's novel The Night Watch rather than its follow-up novel Day Watch.

The story revolves around a confrontation between two opposing supernatural groups (known as 'Others'): the Night Watch, an organization that seeks to improve the world - but isn't totally perfect and selfless either - and the Day Watch, which champions a Nietzschean, "every man for himself," philosophy, as well as an Aleister Crowley-esque, "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law," attitude, and fights any Night Watch attempt to limit personal freedom.



I was cool to Night Watch when it first showed in Los Angeles. I thought it imaginative, but overplotted and looked like it was trying too hard to play on the same production level of Western blockbusters like Lord of the Rings. I was wrong. I warmed to the film upon repeated screenings. It really does create a successful inner world, the characters do have depth, and it is much more original in its reinterpretation of traditional vampire lore than Underworld. (Don’t get me started on that film’s overplotted and life-sucking bastard stepchildren of a sequel.) Day Watch I enjoyed thoroughly and all the more because of Night Watch.