MOVIE REVIEW: Night Watch

The epic and eternal struggle between good and evil – or Light v. Dark as in Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch – has been fodder for countless stories to mixed effect. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy stands as the modern standard-bearer in film. Now comes Night Watch, the first part of a trilogy based on Russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko’s novels.

Night Watch doesn’t veer from the most formulaic of good and evil struggles. It begins centuries ago where a face-off between the forces of Light and the forces of Dark ends in an uneasy truce that manages to stay in place to our modern times. Then, in 1992, when the story begins, the prophecy of the Great Other – the one who will change the balance between the forces – becomes a reality.

The story revolves around Anton, a seer and member of the Night Watch (those in the forces of Light who keep an eye on the Dark. The Dark have the Day Watch). Anton battles a few bad vampires and things turn out badly. At the same time, the Vortex has begun. The Vortex brings with it dire and possibly apocalyptic consequences if the Night Watch cannot figure out what has caused it.

And that’s the basic blueprint. There was probably more going on but some of the overly kinetic music video style direction hampered any understanding of what actually transpired. In fact, some of the fight scenes were so hyper with so many jumpy cuts it wasn’t until the action slows that my bafflement was sorted out. Other scenes though worked so well – the fight with a scissor-wielding vampire for instance – that the herky-jerkiness of the scenes were a fine payoff. Then there’s a scene of a bolt falling from an airplane through the sky and into an apartment building’s air vent that’s straight out of David Fincher’s playbook.

So, what to make of all this? Quite a lot actually. Night Watch accomplishes plenty despite the fact that when it’s over a discerning viewer can point to one too many tidy resolutions – how’d the lights come back on across Moscow for example? And also, perhaps, there is a too studied adherence to the epic struggle of good and evil: the procedural relationship of the truce - vampires applying for licenses from the Night Watch for instance - is hinted at but never explored. This would have added depth to the menial everyday existence of these Others in modern day Moscow.

But these quibbles seem minor in light of the sheer fun of it all. Fun despite the dour and dank atmosphere that permeates the settings. Anton’s closet is full of empty hangers. An owl turned agent of Light, finding herself in need of clothing, dons Anton’s neighbor’s mother’s old wear. It’s refreshing to see a movie so unencumbered by the style impositions forced upon the genre since The Matrix. Night Watch is unconventionally conventional. And isn’t that how all epic battles are won?