I considered substituting this review with a photo of a big pile of dog poo....cause that's what this movie is. Other visual representation options might include: some sweaty dead monkey balls, a high powered vacuum cleaner, an anthropomorphic sickle & hammer masturbating all over the Hollywood sign, and so on and so forth.
Night Watch has two plots, barely related to each other. The first is, there's this woman, see, and she's a 'vortex', which means that not only do big flocks of CGI birds circle around her apartment building, she's also on a countdown to jumpstart the final battle between good & evil. She turned into a vortex because somebody put a curse on her.....but who put the curse on her?!? If Nightwatch, the ragtag team of ah, vampire-trapping vampires, don't figure out who put the curse on her, someone might start playing a Heavy Metal track and jump-cutting nauseously every time anyone does anything! Wait, that already seems to be happening.
The second plot is something to do with, uh, the guy's old girlfriend, had a baby, and uhm, it actually turns into a really bizarre anti-abortion polemic at one point (like, I'm not kidding, a 12-year old boy turns to the screen and says: "You tried to kill me.....12 years ago!!!" Ugh), a few moments after thousands of medieval warriors appear on the top of an apartment building without any explanation whatsoever and start fighting (in a sequence that makes Discovery Channel historical re-enactments with the three dudes from the Scottish Historic Battle Re-enactment Enthusiasts Society look awesome), and, oh, man, this movie is in-co-her-ent.
But not without its positive points! There's some cool stuff about the gloom and one neat bit where a guy looks at a little girl and only sees her veins, like she's an exhibit from Body Worlds. But that's like saying Pearl Harbour didn't suck because it had a few neat explosions. This movie makes no sense. It's a bunch of random dialogue punctuated by the most derivative music video action scenes.
Watch this movie if you like:
- Rockin' out to Heavy Metal every time any character wants to go anywhere
- Cool subtitles that occasionally interact with the environment
- $2 CGI in every scene, because it's not enough that a car has to start, you need to fly into the engine and see the ignition sequence itself to really get the message across
Avoid if you enjoy:
- Plot
- Structure
- Dialogue
This is a 
It's funny that while I agree with you about some of the editing and directorial choices - like the ignition sequence, the door bell wiring and the unncessarily over the top action scene etc. - I totally disagree about the lack of plot or structure. Can't comment on the dialogue because I've already read several different versions of the subtitles that have different translations - the main one being that it's either Gloom or Twilight.
And it wasn't a girl that he could see the veins in - it was his son. Which leads me to suspect that you weren't paying attention at all! :P
I was! I totally payed attention to how much it sucked.
Okay PAID attention. Shurrup. I just had a pub lunch with three beers. I think I'm doing very well.
Erm. I'm kinda wondering if we were watching the same film...
Pix, may I just say, your golden recommendation was one of the reasons I went to see it at all, because I have enormous respect for your visual tastes and your opinions on a wide variety of topics.
However on this particular subject I must respectfully hold a converse opinion.
I assume you were watching the movie in which, during the hard-rockin' truck-races-to-the-vampire-entrapment scene, they almost run into this totally random character, but manage to flip the truck over him? Yeah, that's the one.
I think it was the ideas that did it in for me. Having a vortex-open-because-someone-is-cursed is just a BAD idea. And having this crack squad of elite troops trying to figure out, on-line gossip style, WHO cursed her so that they can then get that person to lift the curse just came across as silly (somehow!). It had a load of ideas that were supposed to LOOK cool, but were just stupid. I mean, WHY the spinal-chord sword?! Wouldn't he fall over? And WHEN are movie makers going to realise that instead of making something seem more emotional, slow motion only highlights the director's attempt to exaggerate the drama in a scene and disconnects the viewer from the experience? Argh!!
Sorry, but I really hated this film.
Someone sold me this movie on the idea that she was trying to get into foreign movies (and also it free ticket because is was a press screening). This is surly the worst crime against a culture since a spotty faced Brian Adam was given his first guitar. Why should I be forced to sit through hours of excruciating mediocrity because some neo-liberal cultural fuddie-duddies are implacable of widening their Hollywood Buffy-ised imagination to something new or different. It was totally forgetting? I just wish it wasn?t as bad as it was so the nightmare of it would go away!
P.S. She hasn't asked me to see another movie.
D - the "totally random character" was Zavulon, the leader of the dark others, not just some stranger. Are you sure you were paying attention?
Billy - "excruciating mediocrity"? How so? And who are these "neo-liberal cultural fuddie duddies" of whom you speak?
Well then, THAT makes perfect sense!
Truth be told, I missed the opening, so any tips on how the first 5 minutes could have explained the rest if the film would be greatly appreciated.
Was there a mystical sword that Zavalon hid in his spine? Had there been, in the distant past, a brutal war on top of an apartment building which we were later privy to in flash back form? Was there a disclaimer apologizing for the brazen use of cliche in favour of original story-telling?
"Had there been, in the distant past, a brutal war on top of an apartment building which we were later privy to in flash back form"
Actually, yes.
Haha - this film sounds awesome and all this bad stuff about it makes me want to watch it even more!
If you think about it, shit films like this with hundreds of holes, crap plots, etc., lead to the best post watching pub analysis type conversations... if you know what I mean.
Cheers for the recommendation