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With Day Watch (Dnevnoy Dozor) , Timur Bekmambetov returns to the showdown between wizards, shapechangers, and vampires fought beneath the noses of an oblivious Muscovite public over whether these supernatural entities should protect or exploit ordinary humanity. For a thousand years or so, a tense and fragile truce has stood between these evenly-matched forces, but the stand-off is about to break down with the appearance of two beings of extraordinary power, one on each side. Power is not the same as cunning, however, and agents of the Light and Dark still seek to outmaneuver one another. Zavulon, local leader of the Dark Ones, calculates that his side has finally achieved a decisive advantage, and urges war forward; Geser, who leads the Light Ones, hopes to prevent it, without violating the terms of the truce. The movie retains Anton, unenthusiastic agent of the Light, from the earlier Night Watch as its protagonist, instead of telling a story from the point of view of a Dark One. Not entirely by coincidence, the great new forces to threaten the balance of power are Anton’s partner and hopeful girlfriend, Svetlana, and Anton’s estranged son, Yegor, who fight not only for their faction, but over Anton’s affection.

Complicating the likely eruption of war is the Chalk of Fate, an ancient relic with the power to rewrite history. As the Light and Dark dance around the finer legalities of the truce, individuals on either side seek this handy little dues ex machina for their own use, while blaming one another for ruined lives.

Day Watch retains much of what made Night Watch a success: tight, dark camerawork matched to wild action sequences, including a memorable drive across the face of a hotel and a holocaust wrought by a toy akin to a yo-yo. Like its predecessor, Day Watch only hints at a rich mythology behind the story and characters, which can be enticing or wearisome, depending on your tastes. Unfortunately, Day Watch also fails to bring anything new to the formula, revealing how much the earlier film depended on the thrill of novelty—novelty of the ground rules for the conflict, novelty of the implied background, and novelty of the Russian aesthetic.

Although he still faces great challenges in the second movie, Anton is past his trial by fire. He is a seasoned operative, knows his way around the occult underground, and knows the tricks of the trade. The story line, while simpler, is still often confusing and contradictory, so the movie is hurt by the loss of identification with a protagonist just as confused as the audience. Day Watch works so hard to highlight the moral ambiguities of the Light/Dark division that the viewer loses the sense that he should be rooting for either side. Incongruously comic moments further jar the sense of involvement. Instead of feeling like I was missing important details, as I did for Night Watch, I found myself convinced that Night Watch had nothing beneath the sound and fury.

The Night Watch series plays much like a low-budget version of The Matrix: striking action visuals, engagingly over-the-top characters, and above all the unfulfilled implication of a rich setting. Like The Matrix, the second film is a disappointing rehash of elements from the original, without the unidentifiable spark that made the original work. A third film, Dusk Watch, is in the works; pray it does not suffer the fate of Revolutions.