V for Vendetta

In good consumer fashion i went to see a movie on it's opening weekend. Apparently so did a lot of other people who helped elevate the film to the number one spot in the box office. Here's what i thought. Enjoy!

V for Vendetta

Before I go further in this review, I would like to say that I am a person who has read the comic book upon which this film is based. So, not to sound like some sort of purist dork, but the truth is that this made it a very different experience for me. It would likely be a different experience for those who have not read the book. I guess that prelude does not bode well, but read on anyway – unless you are very eager to see it – as I may spoil it. But you cannot say that you were not forewarned.

The film is set in a futuristic London where a totalitarian government has seized power after some ill-defined catastrophe that came out of an American war that looks suspiciously like Iraq in the few flashbacks that we see. Young Evie (Natalie Portman) wanders through this world until she is picked up by faceless and nameless terrorist V (Hugo Weaving), who takes her under his wing as he wreaks havoc on Adam Sutler’s (John Hurt) totalitarian government and tears it apart from within.

Overall, this is an entertaining film that blends matrix-type theatrics (unsurprisingly really as the script is written by the Warchowski brothers) with some thought provoking left-leaning political thought. My problem is that it does it in a slightly boorish Michael Moore fashion, irritatingly blending the problems of the futuristic imaginary world of the film with today’s problems (this bothers me because it seems somewhat infantile and reductive of issues that are in fact quite the opposite). So we get references to the vague American war that led to the world we see the characters in the film inhabiting, and when we see concentration camps, the images are all pointedly reminiscent of Abu Ghirab.

As a Brit I was also bothered (or amused in a snotty kind of way) by the fact that at the beginning there was a five-minute history lesson, as Americans were taught the importance of November 5th and Guy Fawkes in Britain. On the flipside, I did enjoy the fact that the greeting amongst the party bigwigs was “England prevails.” I may start using this myself.

The acting was universally mediocre, but then again, you are not really meant to concentrate on that. There were a few plot inconsistencies, but one need not linger on them. The biggest irritation I had was the love relationship that the film created between V and Evie, while in the comic book this does exist from Evie’s perspective, it is certainly never seen from V. The fact that they threw it in here made V’s entire enterprise somewhat trite. The other irritations that were lost in translation were ones that I wont go in to as they would spoil the film all together, and I don’t really want to do that as the film is essentially fun.

Survey says: worth seeing at the cinema on the big screen. Big action; while mildly bothersome pretend thought-provoking plot.