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).

The sequel follows the same characters as the original, and follows up on developments in the first film, but does so in a more coherent way. Of course, a working knowledge of the first film is assumed (no summation is provided in the sequel), so if you never saw Night Watch you’re completely out of luck. However, though I left Night Watch with only the sketchiest idea of what had happened, that turned out to be enough to appreciate Day Watch. Nevertheless, I don’t recommend watching the second episode first, as many aspects of the film, especially the ending, will make no sense at all.

While Night and Day Watch are presented as the first two parts of a trilogy, to be continued in Twilight Watch, the first two films are actually both based on the first book in the series, and as such, form a contiguous whole. (spoilers for Night Watch.) In the first film, we became acquainted with Anton Gorodetsky (Konstantin Khabensky), a hapless schmuck who became entangled in powers beyond his ken when he employs a Dark Side witch to hex his unfaithful wife and unborn child. A timely intervention by the Night Watch prevents this but, as a result, Anton became a Light Other and joined the Night Watch. We were also introduced to a number of supporting characters, including Kostya (Aleksei Chadov – The War), Anton’s Dark Side neighbor, Olga (Galina Tyunina), Anton’s witchy ally, and Boris (Vladimir Menshov), the leader of the Night Watch.

The first film focused on the emergence of two messianic powers – mousy Svetlana (Mariya Poroshina), a “funnel” whose ill-defined powers threatened to tear the world apart, and Yegor (Dmitri Martynov), Anton’s son, a Messianic figure twisted towards the Dark Side by Anton’s act of original sin. At the end of the first film, Yegor fell under the influence of Zavulon (lanky Viktor Verzhbitsky, who has a wonderful face for film), leader of the Dark Side, who possesses the useful ability to pull out his own spine and use it as a sword.

Day Watch picks up slightly further down the road. Yegor has become Zavulon’s disciple, and is steadily increasing in power and malevolence. Anton knows what’s going on, but can’t turn against his own son. In the meantime, Svetlana has joined the Night Watch as Anton’s trainee, and the two of them share a mutual attraction. A murder sets off a chain of circumstances leading to a Day Watch warrant being issued for Anton, setting gothic-punk fashion victim Alisa (trashy rock star Zhanna Friske) on Anton’s tail. Meanwhile, Zavulon manipulates events towards Armageddon, while the Night Watch tries to protect Anton and keep a lid on tensions between Light and Dark. The key to the whole affair is the mysterious Chalk of Fate, missing since the fourteenth century, a magical artifact which allows anyone to rewrite their own destiny.

If you think there are a lot of characters to keep track (and there are plenty that I haven’t mentioned) – you’re right. If you think the plot sounds convoluted, again, you don’t know the half of it. The difference between Night and Day Watch, however, is that Day Watch at least makes an effort to clarify what’s going on. Watching Night Watch was an incredibly frustrating experience, with major subplots (like the Svetlana vortex) completely opaque. Day Watch is still pretty muddled, but the elements of the plot fit together more reasonably, and the filmmakers spend more time exploring the main characters, Anton, Svetlana, Yegor, and Zavulon. As a result, I found myself caring more about what happened, and engaging more proactively with the film, instead of sitting back and letting the spectacle wash over me. Khabensky also brings considerably schlumpy charm to bear in the sequel, and his Anton is now a much more appealing protagonist, instead of just a cipher. Many characters with little purpose in Night Watch come into their own here, like Kostya. Day Watch also has more fun with its characters, including some stand-out scenes where Anton switches bodies with Olga in order to dodge his enemies, and finds himself using her body to romance Svetlana.

It doesn’t hurt that the spectacles are also improved. Day Watch starts off smashingly with a well staged attack by the great steppe warrior Timur the Lame (Tamerlane) on ancient Samarkand in Central Asia to steal the Chalk of Fate. Kudos to the filmmakers for using Timur – frankly, Genghis Khan tends to steal all the cinematic attention, overshadowing some of the other nomadic greats like Timur and Attila. The castle siege is well rendered, with some clever affects as even birds from the sky transform into armed warriors to fight off Timur’s horde.

The outrageous stunt work continues into the rest of the film, and Day Watch wears the influence of The Matrix on its sleeve proudly. Fortunately, Day Watch avoids the twin pitfalls that claim most Matrix-influenced films. It is neither indecently impressed with its own coolness, like Underworld and its ilk, nor lazy in its parody like Shrek 2 or Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. Rather, Day Watch rides an enjoyably half-serious line – the effects are in earnest, but it’s clear the filmmakers are having fun with them. Nothing better illustrates this then the scene where Alisa launches her sports car off a ramp, and drives sideways at top speed along the parabolic side of an enormous glass office building. It’s ridiculous, but it inspires a gasp at the audacity of the filmmakers, rather than a chuckle at their stupidity.

Of course, there is still a high “huh?” factor. The characteristics of the Others are never fully explained. Are they vampires? How does one become an Other and can one change back? Who are the powerful Inquisitors, who enforce the rules between Light and Dark, and if they are so powerful, why is a truce necessary? This may all be clear to readers of the novels – it was not to me, a casual viewer of the films. Still, there is a crucial difference between being in the dark some of the time, and most of the time.

Day Watch is certainly not afraid to borrow from some popular sources. The look and feel of parts of the film, and of Moscow as captured in it, reminded me of Wim Wender’s decrepit but majestic Berlin in Wings of Desire. The stuntwork, and the premise of a secret world underlying our own (the Gloom) is straight Matrix. And it is also hard not to detect a bit of Star Wars at work also. However, unlike its predecessor, Day Watch ultimately emerges as a flawed but sufficiently original work.

Recommended? The film may be murky, and frequently silly and confusing, but it’s also far more enjoyable than Night Watch. Goths may not be pleased with a shinier, happier Day Watch, but being happy isn’t their thing anyway, so I’ll consider this a win-win situation for everybody. I was not looking forward to Day Watch, but now I find myself anticipating adaptations of the next chapters, Twilight Watch and Final Watch.

If you like this, you might like: Big Trouble in Little China, Night Watch, The Matrix, Arahan, Underworld, Donnie Darko

© David Austin