The Russian film "Night Watch" opens with an epic medieval battle, during which a narrator explains that centuries ago, the forces of Dark and Light decided to stop fighting and instead forge an uneasy truce wherein Others, as the supernaturally gifted are known, must choose what side to be on using their own free will.

Cut to 1992, when Anton Gorodetsky (Konstantin Khabensky) arrives at the Moscow apartment of a woman named Darya, who at his request casts a spell on his straying wife and her unborn child; as Darya is working her magic, though, a team from the forces of Light -- known as the Night Watch -- arrives to stop her and recruit Anton to their group. Cut once again, this time to 2004, where we find Anton as an undercover agent for Night Watch, drinking blood with the vampires he's hunting. When he's sent to save a 12-year-old boy from being bitten, he not only becomes embroiled in a high-level diplomatic incident between the Night Watch and Day Watch (the Dark side), but he discovers a "vortex" -- a nihilistic black hole that threatens to destroy all of Moscow.

Like all such stories, "Night Watch," an adaptation of the cult science fiction-fantasy novel of the same name, sounds pretty goofy on paper. And like all sci-fi fantasies, from "Star Wars" to "The Matrix" to "The Lord of the Rings," this one is full of tiresome exposition and convenient loopholes and contingencies. But director Timur Bekmambetov handles these narrative bumps with ease, infusing even the hoariest -- and goriest -- of horror movie cliches with equal parts macabre fascination and jaunty humor. The film lives up to its hype with a style, swagger and substance that will appeal not just to the fanboys (and girls) but to their uninitiated friends as well.

-- Ann Hornaday

Contains violence, disturbing images and profanity. In Russian with subtitles.