As it turns out, Day Watch is on Netflix. (Unfortunately, this is the sequel to Night Watch, which is not on Netflix. Argh.)
It was directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who also directed Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. However, those things happened long after Day Watch, so his style here is a bit less refined—which quite suits the setting.
As far as I can tell, the Night Watch movie covers about half of the plot of the first book. Day Watch roughly covers the second half of the first book, dealing with Anton’s attempts to recover the Chalk of Fate in order to undo a bad decision he made in his past. Of course, because it has this ability, practically everyone on either side also wants the Chalk.
Good things: The movie may not be true to the book, but it is thematically true to it. Kostya’s father was perfect. The casting of Gesser, Zabulon and Olga was flawless. Svetlana was chosen well, though her acting was not great. The subtitles are very excellent—they use typographical effects to translate the tone of the speech. The mood is spot-on, and the plot captures the back-and-forth of the two sides quite well, with plenty of stereotypically Russian humor.
Bad things: Anton. Sadly his actor doesn’t do a great job. The scenes that happen in the Twilight can be difficult to follow. The translation itself is bad in many places, and inconsistent with the book’s translation. There probably won’t be a sequel, which means—barring a reboot—there won’t be a canonical film adaptation of the series.
Previously.
As it turns out, Day Watch is on Netflix. (Unfortunately, this is the sequel to Night Watch, which is not on Netflix. Argh.)
It was directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who also directed Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. However, those things happened long after Day Watch, so his style here is a bit less refined—which quite suits the setting.
As far as I can tell, the Night Watch movie covers about half of the plot of the first book. Day Watch roughly covers the second half of the first book, dealing with Anton’s attempts to recover the Chalk of Fate in order to undo a bad decision he made in his past. Of course, because it has this ability, practically everyone on either side also wants the Chalk.
Good things: The movie may not be true to the book, but it is thematically true to it. Kostya’s father was perfect. The casting of Gesser, Zabulon and Olga was flawless. Svetlana was chosen well, though her acting was not great. The subtitles are very excellent—they use typographical effects to translate the tone of the speech. The mood is spot-on, and the plot captures the back-and-forth of the two sides quite well, with plenty of stereotypically Russian humor.
Bad things: Anton. Sadly his actor doesn’t do a great job. The scenes that happen in the Twilight can be difficult to follow. The translation itself is bad in many places, and inconsistent with the book’s translation. There probably won’t be a sequel, which means—barring a reboot—there won’t be a canonical film adaptation of the series.