Russia goes bloodsucker!

 

Cast: Konstantin Khabensky, Vlademir Menshov, Valeri Zolotukin, Mariya Poroshina, Galina Tyunina, and a bunch of other Russians.

 

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

 

Writers: Timur Bekmambetov, Laeta Kalogridis, based on a novel by Sergei Lukyanenko.

 

Running time: 114 minutes

 

2004

 

Do I owe this movie some credit?  I may end up rating it higher later, or, if I see it again and hate it, lower, obviously.

 

The work that went in to this project is clear, and quite staggering.  It’s a vampire-sci-fi-fantasy-epic made with relatively no budget, and that’s no bullshit.  The effects are far above standard, sometimes miles above.  The mysticism is plump with that creepy, old world grit, which greatly benefits its tense chase film nature.

Let me just say that I went into this blind.  Not knowing it was part of an intended trilogy, (#2, DayWatch, is out is Russia already, reviews are all over online.)  So my first impression of feeling robbed as though I did not get enough of these bizarre other-worldly ghouls, was sort of a wash.  The story is moralistic in a Western/Kung-Fu kind of way, but it has a nice and prescient statement to make: The nature of good and evil, the actual ambiguity, is always the place in which the most formative events occur.  The argument is a cynic’s playground.

 

I may not know if this movie delivers until I see it again, either after a long wait or in conjunct ion with it’s other acts.  There may just be far too much Blade, Van Hellsuck, Underwold, and the Matrix on my mind for me to separate this one from the rest of it’s uber-cool-paranormal-action relatives in cinema.  Maybe I need to get Peter Stormare’s drunken, mucus ridden doctor from Minority Report to give me fresh ojos…’cause I tink I seen too much like this to tell one from da udda.

 

Three, minus or plus a half stars…um, count ‘em? ***1/2+-

 

K