Release Date: 05-10-2007
UK Certificate: 18

In summer 2004, writer/director Timur Bekmambetov’s adaptation of
the Sergei Lukyanenko novel, Night Watch,outgrossed both The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of the King and Spider-Man 2 at its native Russian box office – and rightly so. Despite a tiny $4m budget, the head-fuck combo of awesome visuals and a breakneck pace rendered that year’s blockbusters limp by comparison. Now comes the eagerly-awaited second instalment of Lukyanenko’s good vs evil vampire trilogy and, unbelievably, it manages to outdo its predecessor on every level.

With the apocalypse ultimately postponed in part one, the sequel’s plot picks up where the last film left off – same characters, same scenario, with the ‘human’ realm existing alongside an alternative one populated by opposing battalions of bloodsuckers known as the Light Others and Dark Others. The former are still protecting Moscow from the latter, a situation defined by a conflict that has its origin in the distant past – brilliantly recapped in flashback. Meanwhile, Light Other Anton (Konstantin Khabensky) remains hell-bent on righting the wrong he did his young son, Egor (Dima Martynov), as well as preventing him from meeting his main squeeze, Olga (Galina Tyunina) – the consequence of which would trigger global destruction.

While all this might sound too ridiculous – and complicated – for words, in the hands of dynamite director Bekmambetov the balance of drama, action, horror and comedy are on the money throughout. Even when the humour is most obvious, it isn’t played for cheap laughs, but as a satirical dig at the darker aspects of contemporary Russian society – especially its penchant for nouveau-gangster chic. The result is an explosion of eye candy that blasts the ass off anything similar made by Hollywood. Yet, more than that, it’s a terrifyingly awesome new benchmark in fantasy action cinema, and one that even Bekmambetov and his gang will be hard-pushed to better.