Entertain the Hell Out of Me...With Night Watch

My boy Smelmooo recommends movies to me on a daily basis. You could say he's my Roger Ebert ... with the same size belly. Usually though, he recommends crazy, indy movies that no one ever watches. I typically put his recommendations on my Netflix queue and in time forget why I put it on the list.

Well, last week he recommended Night Watch and told me it was a Russian action flick that I had to watch. I normally hate - with a passion - movies that have subtitles so I figured that I wouldn't watch it. When I was on Netflix last night though, I saw that I could watch it instantly on Netflix.com - probably one of the greatest inventions of all time - so I went ahead and started watching it.

To give you a little background on the movie: Night Watch -- or Nochnor Dozor if you're a Communist -- is the "first installment of the trilogy based on the best-selling science fiction novels by Russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko. [The movie] plays upon the tension between light and dark, pitting the superhuman Night Watch patrollers (known as the "Others") against the shadowed forces of the night. But the biggest fear of all stems from the lines of an ancient prophecy, which warns of a renegade Other whose betrayal could bring chaos to the land."

Sounds pretty far fetched huh? Well, just try to watch the movie and you'll quickly realize that it's like nothing - AND I MEAN NOTHING -- that you have ever seen before. Simply put, Night Watch is the most unique, emotional and mind bending movie I've ever seen in my life.

It is different in every single way from anything you've seen in the past...from the movie score that heats up during intense action scenes, to the wide array of camera angles in scenes to the crazy, mind defying vision of the film's director. After watching the movie, I can't explain any part of the story in a concise way, but I thought every single second was awesome.

Like I usually do, I want to try to compare it to other movies I've seen before -- like saying it was a cross between Blade and the Matrix and Ultraviolet -- but comparing it to yet another cookie cutter movie doesn't even do it half the justice of how awesome this movie was.

The movie was a friggin masterpiece and I can't wait to watch Day Watch - the 2nd film in the trilogy - as soon as I humanly can.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!