After seeing Night Watch, the sci-fi epic that's become Russia's highest-grossing film and put director Timur Bekmambetov on the fast track to Hollywood, you may long for the stereotypical Russian films in which a dysfunctional family crumbles over the course of two hours. Those movies may put you to sleep, but unlike Night Watch, they won't give you a headache.
You know you're in for it when the movie starts centuries ago with some portentous narration about the forces of Light and Dark. These forces are engaged in a constant struggle, with enforcers of the Light (called the Night Watch) policing the Dark (who are mostly vampires), and enforcers of the Dark (called the Day Watch) policing the Light (who are seers and shape-shifters, among other things). Collectively, these beings are known as Others; they are immortal (unless they get killed) and able to access a realm called the Gloom, where normal humans can't see them.
One of the agents of the Night Watch is Anton (Konstantin Khabensky), who discovered he was an Other when he tried to get a witch to use black magic to bring back his wife and abort the child she conceived with another man. Anton's big mission involves keeping a little boy, Yegor (Dmitir Martynov), from the clutches of vampires while also trying to stop an apocalypse being brought about by a cursed virgin. Also, there's a prophecy about a great one coming to bring balance to the Force ... er, herald the final battle between the Light and the Dark, and a secret from Anton's past that comes back to haunt him.
Confused yet? Making sense of Night Watch, which is the first part of an ambitious trilogy (the second, Day Watch, is already out in Russia, and the third will be made in English as Bekmambetov's big Hollywood debut), is a futile endeavor, although it's easy to see where it cribs from American blockbusters, including The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and especially Underworld films. Bekmambetov is going for style over substance, and his visuals include plenty of impressive CGI effects and fight scenes full of quick cuts. Unfortunately, none of it serves much purpose except to further the confusion and distract from the fact that Bekmambetov's plot is a complete mess.
The director's aesthetic is just plain ugly, monochromatic and drab in a way that expresses nothing about what's going on in the characters' lives. He uses his accomplished special effects (especially on a relatively small budget) not to further the plot or illuminate the fantasy world he's created, but almost exclusively to show off, dragging whatever momentum the story has right to a halt. Every action, no matter how insignificant, is shot from multiple angles, as if Bekmambetov is worried that if he stops distracting the audience for a moment, they'll realize how nonsensical the whole thing is. None of the characters has an ounce of depth, and Khabensky plays Anton as if he's in constant need of a nap and can barely even get worked up over the pending apocalypse.
Worse, the whole thing is just a setup for the rest of the trilogy, which makes the ending a huge anticlimax; it barely qualifies as a cliffhanger, and does little to engender anticipation for the next movie. Night Watch is a grim, humorless slog in which even the subtitles (which pulsate, change colors and occasionally fly around the screen in response to the action) are flashy, irritating and completely meaningless.