Has anyone seen this movie yet? Has it been released outside of Russia? Reviews and impressions, please.
Also I am curious about one statement I read at IMDb.
(T)he majority of the IMDb positive reviews comes from overseas audience, while the Russian reviewers lash the Night Watch with a scathing sarcasm. Anyone have any translations or know anything about those reviews?
All I’ve seen of it is the trailer (on Apple’s Quicktime site), and it looks amazing. I’ve heard a lot of positive buzz, but don’t know anyone who has actually seen the movie yet.
Dont believe that its “The russian Lord of the Rings”. It took more money than Return of the king, is what they mean. It looks incredible.
So… is there any hope that it’s really coming out in the US next month? And any official word if it’s going to be subbed or dubbed? If it’s the former, I won’t go see it in the theaters - you can’t rewind to catch what you missed there.
I saw this about November time in the UK, from what I remember it was good. A different take on the supernatural world with some very odd things happening.
It was wonderfully subtitled so don’t let that put you off going to see it.
Basically if you think it’s the sort of thing you would like to go see, then it is the sort of thing you should see.
The second one has been released in Russia and the third is in production at the moment. Oddly the third is being filmed in English while the first two were in Russian, bit odd in my mind.
Really good subtitles don’t impact the fact that I have difficulty keeping up with action and subtitles both. When I do watch subtitled movies, I do a lot of rewinding to go back and see what they said 
Saw it tonight, and have to say that it’s probably the Citizen Kane of supernatural movies. I figured that it’d be something like one of the Blade movies, and while there’s a few similarities to it, the characters and plot have way more depth than any of those, and there’s not an “Oh, shit. The bad guy’s are going to get it now.” moment. If it weren’t for the fact that the dialog’s in Russian, and the actors aren’t amazingly good looking, the only way you wouldn’t be able to tell that this wasn’t a major Hollywood production (except, of course, that the story’s more sophisticated than what Hollywood’s spitting out these days).
Didn’t manage to see it but it was released in France back in the autumn to good reviews and pretty good attendance (in Paris at least).
I’m not saying that a movie can’t make a ton of money and be a country’s Oscar nominee and still get reviewed with scathing sarcasm (and if Russian critics are like U.S. critics, pretty much everything will be the brunt of scathing sarcasm from someone), but it sounds unlikely.
Hm, upon rereading the OP, it sounds like it’s referring to reviews from IMDB users. Well, like I said, throw enough people in a room and you’ll get negative reviews. YMMV.
I saw it a few weeks ago, and FWIW, I liked it. It kinda reminded me of Underworld, but without most of the suckiness. That said, I did have a few issues with the movie, but these I have the feeling are the result of looking at this movie on its own; I’ll wait for Day Watch and Dusk Watch first before really complaining about anything.
It reminded me of Underworld too, but with even more suckiness. Lotsa eye candy, but the film made little sense. Really, what the hell was going on? Was Michael Bay slumming in Russia?
I’m amazed at how everyone is gushing over this junk. :dubious:
Made perfect sense to me.
Loved it - my fav. foreign language film of last year, stylistically witty and gritty at the same time. I can’t wait for the next one.
Apparently, there were some large changes from the book series the movies are based on, which are in themselves bestsellers in Russia.
For what it’s worth, the movie did pique my interest in tracking down the source novels, although I haven’t managed to do so yet. Somebody please tell me that they have been translated into English.
As far as the movie is concerned… hrm. At first viewing, I’m vaguely puzzled by the effusive praise that has evidently been heaped on Night Watch. It’s a decent enough movie as such things go, with a heavy sprinkling of dramatic special effects (most of which were revealed in the trailer, so there are few surprises in that regard). The story postulates a secret reality just beneath the surface of our own mundane world, the destiny of which is in the hands of a long-prophecied Chosen One… the movie is conspicuously stylish and pompous, and features a number of frantic action sequences… hmmm. Where have I seen all this before, I wonder? It’s basically The Matrix as scripted by J.K. Rowling-- there’s even a mage called Zavulon, and I defy anyone to contrive a more Rowling-esque first name than that. His last name is never revealed, but it’s probably Gravenhall or Glowerbottom or Scrawlstaff or something.
Having said that, I enjoyed **Night Watch ** more than I did any of the Harry Potter or Matrix films, and I’m intrigued enough to check out the next film when it appears. I’m willing to concede that much of my confusion may result from the fact that this movie is the first of a series, and perhaps some of the plot threads haven’t been fully fleshed out yet (I hope). Even so, a lot of what goes on in the movie really didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Things occur for no obvious reason; seemingly crucial background information is provided in irritatingly scattershot fashion. Characters appear and disappear without warning. It seemed to me as though huge chunks of the movie had been edited out at random.
There’s two almost entirely separate end-of-the-world scenarios going on simultaneously, which is kind of novel in a way, but it also means that none of the characters are very well-established or have the time to interact meaningfully. I think it’s reasonable to ask that fantasy film series based on apocalyptic prophecy limit themselves to one apocalypse per movie, in general. It would simplify things.
**Night Watch ** is an extremely visually engaging movie, but unfortunately about an hour and a half too short for the amount of plot it contains. I want more, dammit, more!
I think the confusion partly comes in because there’s the actual main plot, and then a deliberate red herring plot - if you missed that the red herring was a red herring, things understandably get more confusing. Also, the “end of the world” plot is irrelevant to the actual outcome, the whole thing is a complex plot on the part of Zavulon leading up to that one moment on the roof. Seeing that one moment made me go “Aah!” and made everything that went before clear as crystal.
Bumping this, because I saw the movie last night and really enjoyed it. After playing the demo of the game that was just released, I was interested enough to stick the movie on my Netflix queue. As luck would have it, I’m reviewing the game, and the publishers even sent a retail copy of the DVD with the game. Bonus!
SPOILERS:
My only real disappointments were that there just wasn’t enough shapeshifting, and the camera cuts were too swift during the action scenes. And though the apocalypse thing was a red herring, I still didn’t quite get how the doctor had cursed herself. And was it ever explained how Anton became a vampire?
I saw this months ago when it was released stateside.
The movie is one big WTF. There’s a few good moments. Otherwise its VERY Russian and also makes very little sense. The bad guy plots out his schemes by playing a video fighting game with poor graphics?
The 3rd film from what I hear isn’t a sequel its a remake of the first two.
Out of curiousity, how is the game? I downloaded a trailer for it, and quite frankly it looked like ass. Of course, gameplay can make up for a lot so…does it?
The game uses the Silent Storm engine, which is awesome. Haven’t actually played it yet, though.