I couldn't tell you why I returned to this saga after being immensely disappointed by Night Watch, but I did. Again I was drawn in by the same misguided hype that surrounded the first instalment.
Who are these simple, easily satisfied cinema-goers that drool over basic gimicks such as the alternative subtitles in Night Watch? What about the convoluted, silly plot, complete lack of interesting characters and vague half-formed ideas? Anyway, enough of the first movie. The second, somehow manages to plum new depths of pointlessness. Again the plot is needlessly complicated in order to direct focus from the fact that there isn't really one.
The characters can never arrest the attention due to the dialogue being translated (badly) from Russian, leaving sub-70's cop show acting. I can only surmise that it was more realistic in it's native tongue.
For a fantasy film there seem to be very little fantastical elements, but rather some vague hints that at any moment now something might happen.
The editing is by far the most insurmountable issue here though, by turns deeply serious then, suddenly, comedic. Absurd.
It's all such a waste that it's hard to tell what the directors were aiming to achieve here. Hopefully it wasn't what we ended up with.
Who are these simple, easily satisfied cinema-goers that drool over basic gimicks such as the alternative subtitles in Night Watch? What about the convoluted, silly plot, complete lack of interesting characters and vague half-formed ideas? Anyway, enough of the first movie. The second, somehow manages to plum new depths of pointlessness. Again the plot is needlessly complicated in order to direct focus from the fact that there isn't really one.
The characters can never arrest the attention due to the dialogue being translated (badly) from Russian, leaving sub-70's cop show acting. I can only surmise that it was more realistic in it's native tongue.
For a fantasy film there seem to be very little fantastical elements, but rather some vague hints that at any moment now something might happen.
The editing is by far the most insurmountable issue here though, by turns deeply serious then, suddenly, comedic. Absurd.
It's all such a waste that it's hard to tell what the directors were aiming to achieve here. Hopefully it wasn't what we ended up with.