Long winded, boring & rather strange...
Added 2/6/2010
**MINOR SPOILERS**
I immediately bought "Day Watch" the moment I learned that Timur Bekmambetov, of "Wanted" fame, directed it. Having enjoyed "Wanted" immensely, I had tremendously high hopes for "Day Watch", especially after I saw the action packed trailer, which featured some incredibly exciting imagery (you've no doubt seen it). Anyway, the movie begins with an explosive ancient battle scene that shows warriors on horseback bursting through stone fortress walls, and black hawks shape shifting into ninjas that drop from the sky...Awe inspiring stuff to be sure, but as the amazing opening sequence draws to an end, the movie takes on a completely new setting: Modern Moscow. We are introduced to a pair of characters; a man who is a veteran agent of a supernatural agency, and a blond rookie girl assigned to him. As they drive through the night, they receive a disturbance call involving a vampire. We next see that the vampire is an adolescent boy, who by pricking his victims with a needle, is then able to drink their blood from afar through a juice box (yes, you read that correctly). The trio somehow run into another dimension where physically transparent images of our own progress rapidly...The point I want to make here is that this stuff is not entertaining, only strange and often irritatingly ridiculous.
The handful of action scenes (besides the first) are boring and unorthodox (so much so, in fact, that I am hesitant to call them such), and the Russian made beats that accompany them are so overwhelmingly monotonous that I actually wished they would end prematurely! No Rob Zombie tunes, as played in the trailer!
It took considerable effort on my part to finish all 2hrs 10mins of "Day Watch", and I only appreciated a total of two scenes (one was a lesbian kiss).
Bottom line: If you are looking for s slow moving fantasy/romance plot without much in the way of excitement (visual or mental), then you have found your fun, but if you're yearning for another kick ass action extravaganza along the lines of "Wanted" (as I was), then heed my advice, and steer clear of 'Bore Watch'.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Good Old School SciFi
Added 2/4/2010
Daywatch is totally original yet completely familiar. Good vs evil, special powers, alternate dimensions, it has it all. Definitely recomend it to fans of old school scifi like the Thing or Aliens.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Killed by Plot Holes
Added 1/5/2010
When I saw Day Watch available on Netflix streaming I eagerly hit the play button on the Xbox 360 and sat down for what I hoped would be a couple hours of fantasy action movie enjoyment. What I found, unfortunately, was a movie that seemed to lose its way about a third of the way in and never did make enough sense to justify recommending it.
Something that Netflix failed to mention was that this is a sequel so it took me a while to catch up on the mythos of the fantasy world being portrayed. Even so, fans of fantasy will quickly catch up with and grasp the basics of the world of Day Watch. What I was never able to figure out were the amazing gaps in the story.
Why did Anton switch bodies if it would be so obvious to the Day Watch that he had done so? Where does Svetlana go for chunks of the movie? Why was Anton able to figure out the mystery of the chalk so easily - something that had been hidden for centuries? How could Svetlana's accidental bump of Yegor count as conflict, let alone cause him to bleed?
The story's gaps killed this movie for me. There are better foreign action films, like District B13. Go watch that instead if you are interested in good sci-fi fantasy action.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Russian Magic Fiction
Added 9/12/2009
I bought this movie because he had just bought an HD LCD TV (and got a free bluray player from Amazon). I was looking for some sci-fi/zombie/killer robot movies and stumbled across this.
It is, apparently, a translation of a russian novel (actually, it's a series, but you know what I'm saying). The backstory and plotlines are WONDERFUL! I can see that this setting has a fantastic potential.
Unfortunately, I don't think it was pulled off. I don't mind dubbing. I'd rather have dubbed than subtitled. The special effects were rather cheesey and a number of the characters were strictly two-dimensional (and some even almost one dimensional). I inferred a lot of the plot and had to explain it to the spouse as things progressed.
I want to like this movie. I REALLY want to like it, but I just can't.
I gave it two stars because of the potential of the setting. I'll probably trade this one off or put it up on eBay.
0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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No animated subtitles!
Added 9/1/2009
Please note that I am rating the disk alone and not the film which I give 4 stars. Why Fox decided to release this great Russian epic without the original animated subtitles is beyond me! It really does take a lot out of the movie and unless Fox realizes that both Night Watch and Day Watch suffer for this and re-releases them with the original subtitles, I will refuse to buy!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Long winded, boring & rather strange...
Added 2/6/2010
**MINOR SPOILERS**
I immediately bought "Day Watch" the moment I learned that Timur Bekmambetov, of "Wanted" fame, directed it. Having enjoyed "Wanted" immensely, I had tremendously high hopes for "Day Watch", especially after I saw the action packed trailer, which featured some incredibly exciting imagery (you've no doubt seen it). Anyway, the movie begins with an explosive ancient battle scene that shows warriors on horseback bursting through stone fortress walls, and black hawks shape shifting into ninjas that drop from the sky...Awe inspiring stuff to be sure, but as the amazing opening sequence draws to an end, the movie takes on a completely new setting: Modern Moscow. We are introduced to a pair of characters; a man who is a veteran agent of a supernatural agency, and a blond rookie girl assigned to him. As they drive through the night, they receive a disturbance call involving a vampire. We next see that the vampire is an adolescent boy, who by pricking his victims with a needle, is then able to drink their blood from afar through a juice box (yes, you read that correctly). The trio somehow run into another dimension where physically transparent images of our own progress rapidly...The point I want to make here is that this stuff is not entertaining, only strange and often irritatingly ridiculous.
The handful of action scenes (besides the first) are boring and unorthodox (so much so, in fact, that I am hesitant to call them such), and the Russian made beats that accompany them are so overwhelmingly monotonous that I actually wished they would end prematurely! No Rob Zombie tunes, as played in the trailer!
It took considerable effort on my part to finish all 2hrs 10mins of "Day Watch", and I only appreciated a total of two scenes (one was a lesbian kiss).
Bottom line: If you are looking for s slow moving fantasy/romance plot without much in the way of excitement (visual or mental), then you have found your fun, but if you're yearning for another kick ass action extravaganza along the lines of "Wanted" (as I was), then heed my advice, and steer clear of 'Bore Watch'.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Good Old School SciFi
Added 2/4/2010
Daywatch is totally original yet completely familiar. Good vs evil, special powers, alternate dimensions, it has it all. Definitely recomend it to fans of old school scifi like the Thing or Aliens.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Killed by Plot Holes
Added 1/5/2010
When I saw Day Watch available on Netflix streaming I eagerly hit the play button on the Xbox 360 and sat down for what I hoped would be a couple hours of fantasy action movie enjoyment. What I found, unfortunately, was a movie that seemed to lose its way about a third of the way in and never did make enough sense to justify recommending it.
Something that Netflix failed to mention was that this is a sequel so it took me a while to catch up on the mythos of the fantasy world being portrayed. Even so, fans of fantasy will quickly catch up with and grasp the basics of the world of Day Watch. What I was never able to figure out were the amazing gaps in the story.
Why did Anton switch bodies if it would be so obvious to the Day Watch that he had done so? Where does Svetlana go for chunks of the movie? Why was Anton able to figure out the mystery of the chalk so easily - something that had been hidden for centuries? How could Svetlana's accidental bump of Yegor count as conflict, let alone cause him to bleed?
The story's gaps killed this movie for me. There are better foreign action films, like District B13. Go watch that instead if you are interested in good sci-fi fantasy action.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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