Come to me...
Night Watch opened at my semi-local last weekend.
It didn't seem exceptionally original to me. It felt just like a graphic novel on the big screen. It was more obvious than the Crow and less inventive than Sin City. I know it wasn't originally a graphic novel- it was a book- but it had much the same feeling. Stunning set pieces, visually a treat. But hollow. Like a graphic novel, there is only depth inbetween the pictures. That is where the characters reside. You have to add your own interpretation and interpolate the feelings of the characters.
But it just so happens that I love graphic novels and so don't mind that this didn't do anything new for me. I love a film that has me thinking afterwards about the thoughts and emotions, adding my own ideas of who the people should be and what should happen next. It is something to sink my teeth into... and draw blood.
Oh and it included Buffy. Which was nice.
The plot was good in parts but failed me in others. I liked how Anton's near-fall, when he almost made his wife miscarry, came back to haunt him. It made sense that Yosef would choose the dark given Anton's absolute failure to do anything particularly good in his life. It was clever. But I didn't get the other plot with the vortex. So Anton went to the doctor with a lame ulcer excuse she saw through... and then what? How exactly was he meant to get who cursed her? And why did it have to be him that spoke to her rather than Bear and Tiger? And why did she tell him?! And how did just telling him lift the curse and make everything light again? Like jes I wanted the plane to actually crash. All that build-up for it to just land made it farcical.
On a subjective/personal level, I wanted a confrontation with Anton's ex-wife. There were plenty of physical confrontations but no real emotional ones and this was needed I think... She must have been more than a little annoyed that he abandoned her with their child. But I am having fun Imagining this anyway. It is good when there is room for Imagining.
I am intertested in the books. Much more interested in the books than the two sequels to this film. Especially since I heard the third film will be partly "Hollywood" which can only go and spoil it. The best part of this film was the use of subtitles that bled, faded, moved, , got obscured... If it really is to have an English third film it will be a bad thing. But to read the books and spend a considerable amount of time in this modern but magical world would be a treat.
And I thought the film could do with more gore.
posted by keppet @ 1:31 AM
