V for Vendetta

Natalie Portman
Hugo Weaving
Stephen Rea
John Hurt
Directed by: John McTeigue

“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. There is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof”

Plot: In a futuristic totalitarian England, a young woman named Evey is saved from corrupt government agents and is introduced to a masked vigilante “V”. She becomes his ally in a fight to bring down an oppressive government by taking over the airwaves and destroying the symbols of that government. The vigilante “V” uses the image of the legendary figure Guy Fawkes, and the anniversary of his attempt to destroy the parliament building, as a rallying cry to bring the people of London to their feet. He is being tracked by a police officer in the newly formed “finger” government; who in the course of his investigations, begins to realize that the laws he was sworn to uphold are in fact oppressing the people they were supposed to protect.

Review: First off I need to just throw this out there. Natalie Portman should not do films that require any kind of English accent. I am a big fan of her work, so please, I am now begging, no more English accents. The on again off again accent was noticeable to the point of almost taking away from my complete enjoyment of the film. Hopefully, she won’t take that the wrong way and it won’t stop her from accepting my standing wedding proposal and promise to bear her children, or something like that. But enough of my wishful thinking and let’s get on with the review.

As an Alan Moore fan and more specifically a fan of the original graphic novel, I have been waiting for this movie to come out ever since I heard the Wachowski brothers were trying to put it together. And I have to admit, once I was used to watching one of the main characters act from completely behind a mask and I pushed past Natalie Portman’s accent, I was not disappointed in the least. In fact, I was very pleased with the end result. James McTeigue pulls the graphic novel off of the page and does an incredible job of putting it on the screen. V for Vendetta draws obvious cues from the George Orwell novel 1984, and its later film, with its model of a bleak totalitarian government, even to the point where some of the scenes with the evil tyrannical government employees, and the stellar, and gleefully ironic performance of its Chancellor, John Hurt (he plays the unlucky hero, Winston Smith in the film version of 1984), seem modeled from the original movie, but with one major difference, this movie gives hope to it’s victims through violent uprising. While the trailers give you the idea that this is probably an action flick, the action actually comes in small spurts, and with the exception of the beginning and end, this movie is almost completely driven by character development, unraveling the mystery of “V”, and watching a person completely broken down and rebuilt, all so she can see what was right in front of her from the beginning. In fact, most of the film is exposition. A little action is thrown in because this movie is, partly at least, about the justification of violence to benefit the greater good. I couldn’t help walking out of the theater and applauding everyone that helped put this movie together. It is a smart movie that doesn’t attempt to dumb down its content. The dialogue doesn’t seem trite, overbearing, or even clichéd, and the storyline that is actually very involving. So the wordiness of the film is actually not very noticeable. I think the Wachowski brothers have put together a film that the average moviegoer and the hard core Alan Moore fan can get into. This is by far the best movie of the year and may be the smartest and most thought provoking “non Oscar type” of movie in years. I really can’t recommend this movie highly enough.

Another note:

V for Vendetta is based on the Allan Moore graphic novel of the same name, and at the time of its printing, was controversial for its hero’s use of extreme violence to wake up England’s citizens from the novel’s totalitarian government and spurn them to action. The movie uses the same theme and comes across just a relevant today. It is very difficult to watch a movie about a masked vigilante destroying English national monuments and trying to overthrow an oppressive government, regardless of your political beliefs, without putting it into some kind of modern context. Although to the movie’s credit, the producers and directors seemed to take great pains to stay true to the novel without making allusions to modern day politics. I mention this because I think your view of current politics will weigh heavily on your overall opinion of the movie. It is very easy to read more into a film that is just trying to make a broad statement about the overbearing power of a tyrannical government than was intended by the filmmakers. This is very easily one of those movies that you could sit around with your buddies and argue about for a while after you’ve left the theater.

A movie review is probably the last place to start a political debate, or to pontificate about the politics of a particular film, but I will say that I think that the intention of the novel; and more specifically to this review, the movie, is to speak to the need for the voice of it’s citizens to be heard, and not to expect the government to speak for you. Take from the movie whatever you wish, and in whatever context you want, I just review these things. I am going to leave it to you to decide if this is an important film, one of those crazy Hollywood “message” movies, or just another comic book film.

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