Daywatch, the sequel to 2004’s fantastical Nightwatch, is a sumptuous visual feast with a decidedly non-Hollywood feel, despite blockbuster-proportioned special effects. That isn’t to say it’s anti-Hollywood, it just puts on display a different aesthetic.

The film picks up where Nightwatch left off, following the series’ hard-working hero, Anton (Konstantin Khabensky). Anton is one of the “Others” (supernatural beings that exist side-by-side with normal human beings, but remain unseen) and he’s embroiled in a deadly game of manipulation designed to end the long truce between the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness. The forces of Darkness are ruled by Zavulon, played to hammy perfection by a relentlessly cheerful Viktor Verzhbitsky.

Anton is a member of the Nightwatch, a sort of police force that monitors the Dark Others for truce-breaking crimes. His analogs among the forces of Darkness are, of course, the Daywatch. But Anton is not an entirely good man, and Khabensky portrays him as a real — and very complicated — human being, warts and all. The driving force behind his membership in the Nightwatch is the knowledge that he committed a great evil years earlier, and now he strives to compensate for it. That evil cost him his son Yegor (Dima Martynov), who is now a Dark Other of great power, and a protégé of Zavulon.

Rating:

AKA: Дневной дозор, Night Watch 2, Night Patrol 2, Dnevnoy dozor

Staring: Konstantin Khabensky, Mariya Poroshina, Dmitry Martynov

Directed by: Timur Bekmambetov

Written by: Timur Bekmambetov, Alexander Talal - based off the novel Dnevnoy dozor by Sergei Lukyanenko and Vladimir Vasiliev.

Despite losing Yegor in the previous film, Anton remains in the Nightwatch, where he’s training a Light Other of similar power to his son. He hopes to eventually win Yegor back from Zavulon. But when Dark Others start turning up dead, Anton is framed as the prime suspect, threatening the truce. And with Yegor firmly on the side of Darkness, if the truce fails, the Dark Others seem to think they might win the ensuing war. Further complications include a piece of chalk that can change a person’s fate, and Anton’s quietly simmering love for Svetlana (Mariya Poroshina), the powerful Other he’s training.

This is an action movie, full of spectacular fights, stunning cinematography, dramatic characters, and beautiful special effects. But it’s not afraid to get a little dirty.

Let me explain that. Daywatch, like its predecessor, evinces grit from every pore, while simultaneously glorying in cheesy good fun. A prime example: There’s a scene in which a character literally drives a car up a building. It’s a silly scene, and the audience is inclined to laugh at it. But as the car improbably races up the side, it causes severe — and much more believable — damage. You can see as glass explodes everywhere, and you get the impression that the glass is sharp. And maybe you start to think a lot of people got hurt. These aren’t the airbrushed, primped and pampered action stars you’re used to, and their mayhem is not bloodless.

An important point Daywatch takes great pains to make clear is that none of the Others are entirely good or evil. Anton’s neighbors are Dark Others, a blood-drinking father and son, but otherwise law-abiding citizens who only drink animal blood. The father in particular worries that Anton will find some reason to arrest them, and goes to great lengths to assure the Nightwatch that they’re a harmless family.

There are other ways this movie distances itself from Hollywood summer-movie fair. Take Anton himself… Hollywood heroes need to be the best at what they do, be it swordplay, gunplay, or kicking butt. If they’re cops, they need to be the baddest, best cops on the street, preferably at their most effective after they’ve been suspended from the force for being such mavericks. Being a licensed cop just holds them back. But Anton’s best power is that he’s a cop, and has backup at his fingertips. His neighbors, particularly the father-vampire (Valeri Zolotukhin), are probably nearly as powerful personally as Anton, and Zavulon is quite a bit more powerful. It’s the fact that he’s got the rest of the Nightwatch behind him that makes Dark Others fear Anton, which equates nicely with what makes police officers intimidating in the real world.

Another difference is the variety of Other powers, from shape-changing, to mind-reading, to telekinesis, to inhuman fighting prowess. At one point, Anton escapes an attack by diving through a movie poster and coming out a different one in a completely different location. The mechanics of how these powers work is never overtly revealed. The filmmakers deliberately leave blurred the lines American audiences typically see drawn between such creatures as witches, wizards, vampires, and demons. Anton, for instance, doesn’t drink blood… except when he needs vampiric powers.

Perhaps Russian audiences are more used to films that don’t spoon-feed them explanations. This is an action movie, but it also makes you work for your answers. And unlike just about anything coming from American studios during the summer months, it doesn’t require you to turn your brain off to enjoy it. I, for one, find that very refreshing.