Day Watch: Unrated (20th Century
Fox Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B+ Extras: B Film: C-
We have
already covered 2004’s Night Watch twice
in both formats. You can read about that
first film in this series at these links:
DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3858/Night+Watch+(Russia/Fantasy-Horror)
Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7591/Night+Watch+Unrated+20th+Century
2008’s Day Watch, which picks up pretty much
where Night Watch left off arrives
to Blu-ray here in its unrated form running 146 disappointing minutes. It’s quite surprising that even the potential
of the first film could not be fully realized in this follow-up, which was
already envisioned as a second installment when the material was originally
written. However, the film fails even
harder than the first film primarily because it tries too hard and becomes such
an ambitious film that it ultimately leaves the viewer unimpressed.
Most
importantly the film drags on and on and runs far too long on little
development that leaves the viewer feeling shortchanged among many other things. The inconsistencies with the first film are
evident, even down to the production, which the film has a slightly different
look altogether, especially with a 2.35 X 1 scope framing, presented on Blu-ray
in 1080p. Both films look good in High
Definition, lots of detail and depth, with nicely rendered and stylized color
palettes, but that cannot correct the films lack of emotion that is transmitted
with the material. Night Watch was presented in the flat aspect ratio of 1.85 X 1,
this reminded me of the Blade films,
which the first film was shot in scope, then the second film was shot in flat,
then back to scope for the third film, which this among a few other things did
not help the consistency of the three films.
Here, at least the overall feel is in tact, despite different
framing.
Like the
first film, we have the original Russian audio track presented in a lossless
(and highly dynamic) DTS-HD MA (Master Audio lossless) 5.1 audio track, while
the English track is simply a lossy DTS 5.1 track and the difference is
incredible. I personally like the films
sound design and think that this does help the film work a bit more, Fox did
the right thing by making sure that it was up to the performance for Blu-ray
with superb audio.
The
supplements are lighter too, which only help tell the story with a bit more
detail starting with a commentary track, a making of section, and interviews,
plus another D-Box feature, all of which are adequate in terms of supplements
and appeal to fans, but are nothing super in-depth and are easy to skip just
the same.
All
things considered we don’t get very many films from Russia and both Night Watch and Day Watch, while not on my top anything lists, are at least
something different, I applaud their ambition and Fox has served the films well
by releasing them with quality in mind, not just in the performance audio and
video wise for Blu-ray, but also included a sufficient amount of supplements to
keep fans happy and make their decision to migrate over to Blu-ray from DVD much
easier.
- Nate Goss
