How sad is this?

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Blistering performances.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, 'Day Watch' will leave you in a state of constant confusion masked with a barrage of unique cinematography. Attempts to keep up with the muddled plot line will be found in vain for most in this realm of witches, bloodsuckers, and changelings. Director Timur Bekmambetov utilizes every ounce of creativity to overcome the narrative's disarray but ultimately failed in 'Day Watch'.Bekmambetov created something that will entertain throughout due to striking cinematography, but ultimately fail to pull itself out of the depths of mediocrity.

I saw Night Watch on a whim a year ago and thought it was pretty good. Not good enough to rush out & buy Day Watch immediately, but a good flick. Well that was my mistake.I'm here to tell you that Day Watch is such an impressive experience that you MUST rush out and watch it immediately after seeing Night Watch. In the history of cinema, very few sequels have been as good as the first. The Empire Strikes Back is one. The Silence of the Lambs is another. Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan oh hayell yes. And DAY WATCH.The budget clearly got a shot of steroids after the success of the first, and this is evident in very slick, heart pumping CGI scenes. Funny I was never one for car chases but there's one here which alone is worth the price of admission. It involves a car driving on the side of a skyscraper, how cool is that.But believe it or not, it wasn't the flashy effects and excitement that really got my attention. It's the way the characters were more confident, more human, and more charismatic than the first. This led to much humor, sentimentality, and a very powerful love story--none of which detracted from the pace and action. In fact this is an excellent example of how breaks for humor and sentiment can greatly augment the momentum of a film.A word of caution to the English-speaking audiences. The subtitles, while adequate, do not cover all the dialogue. So if you have trouble keeping up with the plot, there's your culprit. I watched it with subtitles and managed to hold on, but I was left with a few questions. I've since been told that this is one of the few movies where dubbed English is the best way to watch it. I dunno about that; I've never been a fan of dubbing because you lose the original actors' performances. But it's up to you.The latest news I heard is that the third installment "Dusk Watch" has been scrapped. Although that would be a sad development indeed, I'm not too broken up simply because I thought that Day Watch wrapped things up beautifully and no more needs to be said. All the same, I hope this director and his troupe continue to make more films of this calibre in the future.

I'm note sure what to say. All of this film is excellent and a very worthy sequel to its predecessor. Only one problem. A very disappointing ending. It didn't seem like it was going to be, until the last minute or so, when everything unhappens. This was a fairly obvious possibility, but it makes me sad that they went for it. I suspect this very tired idea transcends culture. I haven't read the books, so maybe this was how it went, but it is not an original idea. The idea of undoing things is dangerous for a story to remain sound, but I felt cheated just as I have in various other films that have used this device. A story is a journey from one place to somewhere else, the characters who live there, the world they go through, and the changes that happen as a consequence of actions we take. We all make mistakes, and we must live with the consequences, and Anton is a very flawed person who makes many.The film is still a must see, in spite of what is sadly a common Hollywood cliché.

Epic in length and epically boring, this follow up to NIGHT WATCH is another instalment in the Russian vampire saga. I thought NIGHT WATCH was bad, but DAY WATCH is even worse: it's an endlessly long mix of over-complicated plotting, ridiculous characters and outrageous special effects scenes added in for nothing other than lousy spectacle.From the very beginning I was out of my depth, caught up in scenes (forever muddled up with flashy editing) involving posturing characters fighting over a delicate balance between good and evil. There's some nonsense back-story involving magic chalk (I kid you not) and when things threaten to slow down a pointless action scene is thrown into the mix (like a car driving along the side of a building for no apparent reason).There's over two hours of this trash to sit through, during which time I became convinced that the filmmakers thought they were making an epic along the lines of LORD OF THE RINGS. Incredibly, this turned out to be the highest-grossing film in recent history in Russia, so maybe they were right, but for me it's a soulless, charisma-free affair that's even worse than the overblown blockbusters churned out by Hollywood on a routine basis. Awful, awful stuff.