Month: February 2009

Constantine

I watched Constantine last night.  While it’s a good movie, it’s not a great movie. I enjoyed the story, and did kind of get pulled into it.  I really like Keanu Reeves, and it was cool to see Shia LeBeouf (Transformers, Eagle Eye) and Tilda Swinton (Narnia) show up too.

I guess overall it’s an okay movie. The story was intriguing, and I even got invested in the characters, but overall it just didn’t feel great.  I’m glad I grabbed it through Netflix, rather than buying it though. 

I’m pretty sure I have the book, which I have yet to read, so I may see about giving that a try.  Often I find books are better than the movies.

I think I gave it a rating of 3 over on Netflix. I liked it.  It was okay.  Actually, I wish that were a rating option – it was okay – rather than – I didn’t like it.  Oh well, I’ll just end up with a lot of movies that have a rating of three.

Night Watch series by Sergei Lukyanenko

The Night Watch (Watch, Book 1) The Day Watch The Twilight Watch (Watch, Book 3) The Last Watch (Watch, Book 4)

I just finished reading Last Watch, which is the fourth and final book in the series.  They must be redoing the covers, they don’t match the ones I actually read.

Anyhow, I picked up this series because it’s one of my boyfriend’s favorite series of books.  Each book is comprised of three short stories, all of which tie together in some way.  They’re pretty easy reads, and having each book separated into three parts allows the reading to go a bit quicker too.  The books follow a main set of characters throughout all the stories, sometimes focusing on different characters.

I highly recommend these if you enjoy fantasy, especially if you like it mixed in with a more modern setting.  The stories take place mostly in Russia, as these are by a Russian author.  They are very well written, and while some things may not quite make sense (like a reference to a particular type of Russian food or drink, or a phrase, etc.) it doesn’t detract from the story.

There are a group of people, known as Others, who live among humans but have powers.  Some are wizards, some are vampires, some are werewolves, there are all kinds of magical entities.  And they’re split into two basic factions that fight back and forth, trying to tip the scale in their favor.

I enjoyed them immensely.  Thank you Dan, for getting me to read them.  *grin*

I wonder if he’s written anything else that’s been translated?  Hmmm….*runs off to search through Amazon*


three-star