At long last, the Film I bought for a dollar in a cheap plastic case a year or so ago.
This is Day Watch, the 2006 Russian Film by Timur Bekmambetov made before he broke big in America with Wanted.
Full disclosure- I didn't know that this was the Sequel when I bought it.
Do you blame me?
The Plot follows our not-so-great Hero as he tries to keep the balance between Night and Day. Meanwhile, his Son has been corrupted by the Night.
Can he bring him back? Maybe a magical MacGuffin will save him.
The whole thing gets convoluted, as you'd expected, and boy is it weird too!
To find out how odd this really gets, read on...
In the Cold Open, we hear someone narrating the Story about Tamerlane trying to grab something called The Chalk of Fate.
He crashes through the walls (see the Stinger) and gets it, helping him be successful until his death.
The Chalk was never found.
Anton has been working to keep the balance, stopping/investigating attacks against normal people.
Him and his partner Svetlana chase down an attacker, but he stops her from injuring them.
Why?
It's his (sort of) evil Son!
He's also falling for Svetlana, but that is discouraged.
He's not sure how to tell her...or even to convince himself to act on it.
He does befriend the Owner of a Chinese Restaurant that might be important later.
The leader of the Night begins to kill people in an attempt to frame Anton for the crime.
To counter this, his Boss has him switch minds with a lady Sorceress in the same organization.
After some hijinks and melodrama (in that order) with Svetlana, she learns the truth.
This also doesn't help them, as they kill another person to frame him in his new body too.
It's all an attempt to break the uneasy truce between Day and Night, culminating in the son becoming an all-powerful force for evil.
Anton- back in his body- goes on the run and does Timur stuff like jump into a glass poster display to teleport into the subway...which buys him about 4 minutes head start.
The battle then becomes about control of the Chalk.
Anton gets it, but can't bring his son back with it.
The son can't use it.
The bad guys plans to get one of his helpers- Alicia- to do it through deception.
Speaking of deception, this Movie goes full
Clayface as Anton's disguise fails spectacularly!
The Night Leader's plan to frame Anton falls apart, but he pivots to tricking Svetlana into fight the Son.
This breaks the truce and all hell breaks loose.
Anton gets the Chalk and saves the day? How?
He undoes his decision from the beginning for Night Watch and doesn't try to cause his ex-girlfriend to have a miscarriage.
He does still find Svetlana in this new timeline, however, and they are destined to be together.
Still a better way to make your older Stars look young than in
the Saw flashbacks from Part 7.
The End.
A long, convoluted Film that has many good moments...eventually.
This Series (which was supposed to be a Trilogy, but isn't) is known for two things.
A dense Plot with lots of implied backstory.
Randomly cool visuals that make no sense.
Both are on display here, for better or worse.
This one has crazy car stunts, some fights and other magical shenanigans. They do save many for the Third Act, which is appropriate.
I just found it hard to follow as the Film chugged along, talking about Pacts, magical Chalk and doing random nonsense. It's not a terrible Sequel by any means though.
Like the last Film, if it did something for you, this one will too.
No need to Run Your Horse Through a Wall.
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| Is that an expression? |
Next up, let's revisit a Film that I haven't thought about since I worked in a Theater while it was out. This Island led us to the Transformers. Stay tuned...
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