Blu-Ray: NIGHT WATCH: Initial Impressions (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

I had heard about Night Watch over the past few years,
mostly from friends who casually asked why I had not yet seen it.
I suppose watching the film never seemed overly important for me
despite the fact that it had become one of the highest grossing films
in Russia.

Enter Michael Reuben and his recent reviews of NIGHT WATCH and DAY WATCH
which I found to be quite inspiring. A few further conversations with
Michael and I am convinced these are films I need to eventually see.
The problem was the exorbitant pricetag that Fox was charging for
catalog titles. I refused to make a blind purchase at such a cost.
All that would soon change when I was able to find both films at a
bargain price.

Last evening I had the opportunity to watch Night Watch. It
begins on a high note with an immensely intense scene involving
witchcraft. However, some 20 minutes into the film I was getting
rather eager to turn it off. I don't know exactly what the problem was,
but I didn't find myself enjoying the film as much as I had hoped.
The film has some credible cinematography that I found quite interesting,
but ultimately I found the Russian language not very pleasing to the
ear, and felt that the film had a very "cheap" feel to it.

With that in mind, I decided to stay with the film for its duration and
was somewhat rewarded at the end with a story that ended with a
nice little "twist." In fact, as I got off the couch and ejected the BD
disc, I thought to myself, "not bad."

The Blu-ray presentation itself is something to behold, and certainly
one of the things that contributed to sustaining my interest through
the end. Image quality is top-notch with crisp image detail and vibrant
color saturation. The audio is an added bonus with one of the most
active surround tracks I have heard on this format to date. You can
immediately appreciate what this soundtrack offers right from the
opening scene with the witch. Hypnotic sounds and ghoulish voices
emanate from every channel, effectively hyping up the "creepiness"
factor of being placed squarely in the middle of the action. If I
found myself losing interest on what was happening on screen, my
senses continued to be entertained by the constant movement of
sound across the listening area.

All in all, I found Night Watch a worthy watch, though I
readily admit that there were factors that made me hesitant to
get through it. Putting more thought to the film one day later, I
find myself liking it more and more. I am hoping to view
Day Watch later this afternoon. I'll check back.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Interesting observations, Ron.

I'll make a prediction. The first time you watch Day Watch, you'll enjoy it less than you did Night Watch. Then, at some point, you'll watch both of them again and enjoy both of them more.

I sometimes wonder -- though it's hard to imagine -- how American audiences would have reacted to the LOTR films if the novel weren't already so well known. Well, the Watch books were as well known in Russia, and Russian audiences brought a similar familiarity with that world to the movie theater. We "foreigners" have to build it from scratch.

Re: the "cheap" feel. I assume you're referring to the grungy, rundown look of everything. I believe that's pretty much how Moscow looked at the time the film was made (and maybe still does). They wanted to leave it looking "cheap" so that it would look real and Russian, not glossy and American. (Maybe we should send over some of our grittier indies.)

I guess that's just a matter of what speaks to you. I'd apply that description to the entire LOTR trilogy (movie, not book), but I'm sure that's a minority opinion. For me, the Watch movies resonate because of the tragedy of a central character who keeps trying to do the right thing but gradually realizes that, through one horrific mistake, he has caused much of the evil he is trying to fight.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Yes, you would think so, Michael, but....APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE!....it was
Day Watch that actually turned me over to liking these films
in a HUGE way.

I read one review calling Day Watch an utter mess. I must
respectfully disagree. I felt the second film was bigger and better,
tied things up rather well, but not before presenting a finale that rivals
the boldest destruction sequences ever put to film (and thankfully
accompanied with an equally impressive 5.1 soundtrack). Talk about
all-time great "end of days" demolition sequences.....

By film's end, everything came together rather nicely and it was
at that moment that a little bell went off inside my head and sort
of reprocessed everything I had seen, giving me immediate
satisfaction and appreciation for both films.

So, blame the second film for making me a fan.

 

[Michael Reuben]

So much for my predictive powers.

Glad you liked it, Ron. That finale really is something, isn't it?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Oh hell yes!

It seemed that in the second film everyone had their shit
together as far as putting forth a film embodied in story
and over-the-top action sequences.

Really, some of the best explosive action I have seen in any film.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I was able to buy these two titles for $18.57 each. I assume that Night Watch is the one I should watch first?






Crawdaddy

 

[Edwin-S]

Yes, it was the first one.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Looking forward to your impressions, Crawdaddy. I found it a bit
uneasy to get into at first, but by the end of the second film I felt
completely satisfied.

 

[ToEhrIsHuman]

Well that was pretty shortsighted of TCFHE, especially considering the nature of BD-J-enhanced subtitling would make this a fairly easy feature to re-create using graphics/animation. This could be layered on top of the video layer, in which case you could still turn them on/off but yet retain the "morphing" quality you mentioned. Sad that they didn't invest a little more time, money, and effort.