NIGHT WATCH
R, 115 minutes

“Night Watch” is a rocking Russian vampire flick that should serve as a shot in the arm for an ailing genre. The first installment in an ambitious fantasy trilogy, the movie manages to add some heft to the arena of Hollywood’s big-budget sensations. It’s not a popcorn movie; it’s heavier than that. It’s a vodka movie.

There are good vampires and bad vampires and they’re in a state of eternal detente. Bloodsucking is licensed, street patrols ticket rogue warlocks, and everyone is drunk all the time. The truce between light and dark holds thanks to a law stating that all the magic people get to choose, of their own free will, whether to become a good guy or a bad guy. But now a 12-year-old kid turns out to be a super-powered balance shifter. He’s got to make the choice between good and evil.

The movie juggles too many characters and is stretched a little thin, but there isn’t a second of “Night Watch” that doesn’t sport something pretty to look at. Moscow is an enormous slab of rotting concrete where everyone needs a bath, and the screen is constantly fragmenting into witch-o-vision, gloom-o-vision, and, most compellingly, a vampire-vision that reduces people to walking circulatory systems.

If you’re looking for more of the stuff, fear not. This was an enormous hit in Russia and its sequel, “Day Watch,” broke box-office records. The DVD is already available online.

– Grady Hendrix

EIGHT BELOW
PG, 120 minutes

A crash course in the facts of life for kiddies, “Eight Below” is full of fluffy animals getting abandoned, eaten, and beaten, or else starving and dying horrible deaths. It’s the kind of movie that makes pet owners want to rush home and hug their dogs while the rest of us sit around wondering what the big deal is.

Based on a Japanese movie (“Antarctica”) that was based on a true story, “Eight Below” is about a team of scientists and guides in Antarctica. The alpha guide is Jerry, a manly man who loves his eight sled dogs and comes complete with a sidekick and love interest who lusts for him as the only other hot person on the continent. When bad weather forces a station evacuation, the dogs get left behind. The rest of the movie is split between the doggies surviving on their own and Jerry’s efforts to return to the cool continent and rescue them. I’m not spoiling anything when I tell you that he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Slick and well-executed, “Eight Below” commits one major sin: pointlessness. The dogs are in danger but you know someone will rescue them and learn a little something about himself in the process. Suspense is nonexistent; it’s all just a matter of watching the clock until the last-minute rescue.

The bad guys in this movie, surprisingly, wind up being its supposed heroes: humans. I was hoping for a last-minute swerve into “Cujo” territory, but no such luck. These are the Uncle Toms of the canine world. But this movie should send up a cry: Working dogs of the world unite. The only thing you have to lose is your chains.

– Grady Hendrix

THE SECOND CHANCE
PG-13, 102 minutes

Calling “The Second Chance” predictable wouldn’t begin to describe it. Calling it boring might be a good place to start.

Steve Taylor’s check-your-watch, by the-numbers Christian film preaches tolerance while trafficking in stereotypes. Among other sins, it calls for racial equality despite painting its white protagonist as angelic and its black lead as a loose cannon. The affair would be wholly patronizing were it not so naively sincere.

Christian Rock star Michael W. Smith makes an adequate film debut as Ethan Jenkins, a media-savvy white pastor. Ethan’s career has benefited greatly from the fame of his father, the legendary Jeremiah Jenkins (J. Don Ferguson), who like a religious Johnny Appleseed founds churches across the nation. One house of worship he created in the late 1960s was the Second Chance Community Church, now being run by Jake Sanders (Jeff Obafemi Carr), a black, outspoken, frustrated community leader. When Jake takes the pulpit (with Ethan’s stamp of approval), and subsequently criticizes the congregation during a televised service, Ethan is reprimanded by being assigned to take some time to “observe” Pastor Sanders and his inner-city church.

A “punishment” that involves being forced to work with those of a different race leaves a bad taste in my mouth (even if – of course – the two do slowly learn to respect each other). As does an outcome where Sanders is able to save his church only with the help of his white counterpart. Rarely is equality this one-sided.

– Edward Goldberger