This sequel to Bekmambetov’s 2006 convoluted horror/sci-fi/action Russian import Night Watch offers more of the same and will most likely send the uninitiated into a spiral of confusion. Basically, two supernatural armies try to keep an uneasy truce as normal people go about their lives. Troublemaking hero Anton (Khabensky) returns, this time training a new Night Watch agent, the pretty Svetlana (Poroshina).
Anton and Svetlana are Light Others, dedicated to monitoring the activities of Dark Others. Anton secretly suffers over the absence of his 12-year-old son, Yegor (Martinov), who has sided with the Dark Others. Both Yegor and Svetlana could be potential Great Others, which means that if they ever meet, all hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, Svetlana secretly loves Anton, and Anton seeks a mystical piece of chalk (!) that can make anything written down come true.
Bekmambetov isn’t particularly concerned with making this story, which ladles in many more characters and subplots, clear. And, in fact, he doesn’t have to. Like Dune and other sci-fi epics, cutting through the details reveals an overall story arc that’s fairly simple and even rather banal. There’s a good army and a bad army, and we hope the good army wins. It doesn’t matter how many characters pop up, and anyone mean or traitorous belongs to the bad side.
While the story tells itself, Bekmambetov amuses himself with a whirling, jiggling camera. It may zoom through the streets at the speed of a Porsche, and then stop on a dime for a slo-mo flourish. Cinematographer Sergei Trofimov lights everything in dramatic blues and grays. But just as often, Bekmambetov shakes and chops through the action, as if bored or overwhelmed.
Even the subtitles refuse to stay still. F.W. Murnau played with animated intertitles on his 1927 masterpiece Sunrise, and Bekmambetov does the same here. If someone talks about water, the subtitles turn liquid. Anything pounding or shaking will cause the subtitles to vibrate. Of course these attempts at dazzling showmanship only delay the cold, hard truth that there really isn’t much here. Yet, more sequels are somehow on the way.