Nochnoi Dozor (Night Watch)

Bomb Rating: 

Just because "Night Watch" is the highest-grossing film in Russian history doesn't mean it's a good film.

This is one of the best examples of a movie whose trailer makes the movie look so much better than it actually is that once you realize how badly you've been duped by the spinmeisters marketing the crappy thing, you feel like walking into an advertising class at the local community college with an Uzi.

Look, just because VAZ automakers manage to make a new car better than any of their previous cars does not mean that car is in any way comparable to a Honda or a Toyota. On the grand objective scale that is "decent automobiles," that new VAZ is still a wretched piece of Russian garbage. Thus, just because "Night Watch" is the highest-grossing film in Russian history, that doesn't mean it's a good film. Let me put it another way: If this thing had been made in Hollywood, it would be compared unfavorably to such things as "Underworld: Evolution" and "Van Helsing."

I'm guessing the only reason it's getting any attention is because the Russian film industry somehow managed to cobble something together that's minimally coherent - and I mean minimally. What gets me even more is that I'm inevitably going to have to sit through two other films as this is a trilogy. I don't really need to go into much detail other than to explain that there's an age old battle between good and evil that's been subject to a truce for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, a child has been born with extraordinary powers, and the truce is broken to battle for the mind of this kid, Yegor (Dmitry Martynov).

Quite frankly, I could barely stay awake during "Night Watch." The film is like a two hour first act as Anton (Konstantin Khabensky) runs around trying to find Yegor before vampires gets to him. The special effects scenes are few and far between and when they do come, the whole scene usually has little importance to the overall story. I suspect critics who like this film will use the word "atmospheric" a lot because it's precisely the kind of word one would use to describe a film with this dull a story.

What's the phrase for "sucks hard" in Russian? This film needs to be retitled.

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