Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Day Watch (spoilers)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Day Watch (spoilers)

    Just finished watching Day Watch. More enjoyable than the first film, if messier, and I thought the complaints about it being incomprehensible were not really justified - at least until the end, which had me hunting through Wikipedia to see if I'd read it right. I still don't get the final scene with Semyon, but the rest more or less makes sense now.

    The absence of the animated subtitles from the first film is irritating (I wonder if there's a future edition of the DVD in the pipeline) but it was still pretty decent. Same characters as before, some ropy acting (only the actors playing Geser, Olga and Zavulon seemed able to underplay a scene), some decent effects (the destruction of Moscow) and some nice touches of humour (some of the body-swap comedy, the footballer's photo repulsed at being kissed by a celebrating security guard).

    Two moments that stuck in the throat, though: the tacky hints at a lesbian love scene that seemed to have been borrowed from 1980s straight-to-video soft porn, and the wilfully cheeky advertising for another film in the middle of it.

    I've really no idea where they'll go with the next one, given the happily-ever-after hints in the ending; I've not read the books but I've read that they're not exactly faithful interpretations anyway.

    #2
    Day Watch (spoilers)

    I can't help but admit that it had me downright confused until the final minutes where it seemed to form some kind of sense. That said, if there was a story attached to all of this it would be brilliant, as there's a superb, bollock-smashing cinematic sense at work in this film. It has the kind of veneer and vision a jerk like Michael Bay could only dream of having. Confusing scenes and a plot that's so all over the place it makes you wonder that there's none there at all are redeemed immeasurably by a visual invention and epic scope that's hard not to be impressed by.

    It's no surprise Timur Bekmambetov's got a Hollywood blockbuster with James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman set to be released.

    One to watch.

    Comment


      #3
      Day Watch (spoilers)

      Yes, you're spot on about the visual invention and epic scope - it's just that it sprawled like a lazy genius, like it could be much more (and like you I hope there is some kind of awesome overarching plot).

      Comment


        #4
        Day Watch (spoilers)

        I get the feeling that there is, it's just that it's in there somewhere, but Bekmambetov's punchy, beautifully-showy direction just won't let us see where it is. And I also noted the complete lack of imaginative subtitles. I guess there was so much on show that to use them would've shoved the whole thing into a maelstrom of style that would've bombarded the eyes a bit too much.

        Comment


          #5
          Day Watch (spoilers)

          I did read somewhere that there were animated subtitles, but they're not on the DVD release. Didn't see it in the cinema.

          Comment


            #6
            Day Watch (spoilers)

            Saw this on Filmflex. My sister also saw it and noted that for a film which concerns a race of vampires, there didn't seem to be many obvious vampires in it (unless you count the boy with the needle/carton-sucking ruse, which was neatly done). The legions in it did seem to be mystical rather than outwardly vampiric, but that didn't really spoil things much.

            I also thought that it was better than the first film. The first started most interestingly, had good stretches but then petered out towards the end (I was trying to hang on at the point where the bloke who pulled a sword from his spine had that rooftop fight), but Day Watch maintained a pace of some sort and became much more compulsive as it reached its conclusion, the whole visual juggernaut creating its own momentum that maybe the plot couldn't quite sustain.

            I thought Konstantin Khabensky as Anton was excellent. As a melancholic hero, he was the basis of what character the film had in terms of someone to carry audience sympathies. Not to root for exactly, but to wish that he would find some resolution to his plight (which he did in an Alan Partridge, pringle-sweater-wearing way).

            Moments come back: The whip that shreds cars and sends them crashing skyward. The dream-like moment where Zavulon's female crony accepts a kiss from a young male ward while her car spins around repeatedly, merry-go-round, as if on ice. And best and most simplest: Anton's 'snow' mask, using it to take on the features of a pursuer.

            Superb bits in a mish-mash of ambition and vibrancy.

            Comment


              #7
              Day Watch (spoilers)

              I wanted Anton to cheer up a bit (understandable why he wasn't going to, mind); I think I'm a bit full of down-at-heels anti-heros.

              Memorable bits for me: the whip slicing through cars; the crony driving her car along the side of the building; the toy exploding and shredding the city. The snow mask was pretty cool too.

              Comment


                #8
                Day Watch (spoilers)

                I wish, though, that I could have heard the name 'Zavulon' without thinking of some kind of hand cream.

                And, as a keen follower of what music can do in film, those chirpy, diddly-do strings of almost Ealing-like happiness that accompanied Zavulon's (hand cream!) scenes with the boy in the kitchens were strangely incongruous. What was all that about?

                Comment


                  #9
                  Day Watch (spoilers)

                  I wanted Anton to cheer up a bit (understandable why he wasn't going to, mind); I think I'm a bit full of down-at-heels anti-heros.

                  I don't exactly think that Anton was a down-at-heel character nor an anti-hero. Morose and lost, he seemed to be, but never as obnoxious or selfish that some 'anti-heros' in film can appear to be. In most Hollywood films, being an anti-hero sometimes involves them being some of the most off-putting wankers who, by their behaviour, makes them deserve the hardships fate puts on them.

                  Khabensky's turn as Anton actually makes him come across as sympathetically human as can be (even though he's a vampire). Lost, bewildered and reluctant.

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X