Opposing agents wage a covert war in our midst, maintaining the balance of power so we wonks can go on with our mundane existence. So it goes in the Matrix and in the cult Russian import Night Watch, and now in this knockoff by the latter’s director, Timur Bekmambetov. Leveraging the graphic novel by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, the film manages one juicy nugget of inspiration with its bland protagonist (James McAvoy), a cube-life drone who knuckles under to a demanding boss even as his office mate is banging his girlfriend during lunch. Wesley, having learned from Sloan (Morgan Freeman) and the tattoo’d Fox (Angelina Jolie) that his late father was an assassin and gotten initiated (i.e., beaten to a pulp) into their rival assassin sect, returns to the office with new-found firepower. The rest of the gunplay between rival factions lacks zing, but McAvoy (Atonement) handles his action-hero stint admirably. 110 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle/Chestnut Hill + Suburbs
