When the bread lines become too unbearable ... : "Night Watch"

Work. Kids. Sickness. As Crash Davis would say, "We're dealing with some serious sh!t here." So that's why my already erratic posting schedule has fallen off even more lately. What, you want your money back?

Anyway, I'm going to try to knock out a few movies at once a few different times in the days ahead. Today, it's crappy horror movies, starting with one that got a decent amount of buzz but doesn't add up to much.

The guy who directed "Night Watch" -- and its sequel, "Day Watch," which I started but have yet to finish -- went on to helm "Wanted," that Angelina Jolie-Morgan Freeman-James McAvoy movie with the curving bullets and whiplash stunts. There's a little of that here, but really it's just a stylized telling of a silly good vs. bad story in Russia.

Let me try to break this down. Way, way back in time, the forces of light and the forces of dark did battle. A truce was formed, and it lasts to this day, with the Light "Others" keeping tabs on the Dark Others. Into this come a couple of people who may be "Great Others," and could decide the war depending on what side they choose. Yeah, I know. Whatever.

Apparently, this was a ginormus hit in Russia. Um, OK. I mean, it's not bad, I guess. But the cool action/effects stuff was kind of limited, and the little flourishes -- subtitles that were in red or run behind objects in the scene -- weren't enough to impress me overall. I don't mind reading my movies, but I still want to be interested in the story. This whole Light vs. Dark thing didn't do it for me, and I came away thinking the same thing as with "Wanted": some cool stuff to look at, maybe, but a lame-a$$ story, even for action/thriller/what have you. AND this time we don't get to drool over Mrs. Brad Pitt. I mean, come on ...