Guardians Of The Night (2016)

Guardians Of The Night (2016)

Original Russian title: Nochnye strazhi

I’d already been disappointed by Guardians (2017), which I’d seen before, but I didn’t think there could be anything worse! 2017 was also the year Guardians of the Galaxy 2 came out! And, as you well know, if you search for ‘Guardians’ on a search engine, there’s a good chance those Guardians of the Galaxy will overshadow all other results. It can sometimes take a while to track down these two Russian films.

I don’t know how I managed to watch the whole thing. The actors are completely unconvincing, the direction is rubbish, not to mention the plot, which is completely far-fetched.

The start wasn’t too bad, mind you, but it quickly becomes ridiculous, followed by a copy-and-paste job of loads of other films. Nothing very original for modern vampires!

I read this bit of a review: ‘Russian films have a certain quality that US films lack, in terms of coherence and simplicity, whilst also demonstrating, as here, a good command of the camera and the narrative flow.’ So… either we’re not watching the same films, or you’d really have to be Russian and/or anti-American and proud of your culture to say that! In my opinion, you can’t even compare them!!!

If I want to be truly objective, I could say that: this very classic vampire film has the merit of presenting a complete story featuring a sort of anti-hero, and it’s quite watchable, with a touch of humour, a fairly well-crafted romantic subplot, a bit of philosophy, and nothing too vulgar. The portrayal of the entire horror-fantasy bestiary, however, is not particularly commendable.

There you go!

On a slightly more serious note:

Night Watch presents a dark and ambitious world, often compared to a Russian version of Blade. Very ambitious, then!

The film tries to captivate with its world-building and visual concepts, boasting an original atmosphere and a distinct identity, albeit heavily borrowed from various sources. Some sequences are inventive and make you want to believe in the story. But…

Before long, everything becomes a muddle: a narrative that’s hard to follow, vague world-building rules and an uneven pace all contribute to this dud. And above all, one element that completely shatters any sense of immersion: the ‘villain’s’ plan to reverse day and night!

Not only does it seem to have no real impact (ultimately, it only changes the time displayed), but more importantly, we never understand what he stands to gain from it. The film offers no real explanation of any potential benefit or additional power, which makes the stakes feel rather hollow.

A film that could have been original, but is disjointed; it has good ideas, but a lack of clarity prevents you from really buying into it.