AKA: Dnevnoy dozor
Country and Year: Russia (2006)
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: Konstantin Khabensky, Viktor Verzhbitsky, Mariya Poroshina, Galina Tyunina, Dmitri Martynov

Review By: David Austin
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)

Day Watch, the sequel to the Russian sci-fi/fantasy blockbuster Night Watch, lives up to its billing. The movie is still dark and gloomy, and Moscow still looks seedier than the average level of Hell, but the film is certainly a lot brighter than its predecessor. Fortunately, the brightness is not just visual, as Day Watch outshines its predecessor in almost all areas – acting, effects, plot and, most importantly, fun.

Night Watch and Day Watch are set in the imaginary world of the novels of Sergei Lukyanenko. The basic premise is that the sketchily defined forces of good and evil had a war, and in the middle of wiping each other out, decided logically enough that it might be better to have a truce. Now both sets of Others, Light and Dark, co-exist in the world, intermingled with normal human beings, and follow a code of conduct. The truce and the rules are enforced by the Night Watch – Light Siders who patrol the Dark Side – and the Day Watch – Dark Siders who similarly keep Light Siders to the terms of the truce. The problem with the first adaptation, Night Watch, is that it was clear as mud. Much of the plot was insufficiently explained, leaving people who hadn’t read the source novels in the dark (as the director, Timur Bekmambetov, has candidly acknowledged).

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