f4f3 | V for Vendetta

Well, this will be riddled with what are generally called Spoilers, so most of it will hide behind an lj cut, but the short review is see it and make your won damned mind up.

....and having said that....

This was within a hair of being an absolutely wonderful movie. Something well above the ordinary, and worth seeing for its dark and well realised mood and wonderful visual flair. And it was very well lit.

A nice person would leave it there, and when I next come across a nice person I'll ask her to confirm that. I have a huge problem with this intelligent, handsome, and thought provoking movie, which is possibly entirely down to my familiarity with the source material, and the feeling that this movie doesn't so much betray that material as dress it up nice, tell it how wonderful it is, and then pimp it to donkeys.

For about 80 minutes or so I enjoyed the fact that the screen play had made some hard choices about the story, but had given us a slimmed down narrative that condensed the original novel so that it made sense as a movie - in the same way that LA Confidential drops two thirds of Elroy's novel, and steals its climax from another of his books but does no violence to the spirit of the original.

I was a little troubled by how little Anarchy features in the movie - there is a lot of referrence to V the Terrorist, to Chaos being created, but only one overt mention of anarchy, and that's in a throw away line. Now, admittedly, I've had a bee in my bonnet about anarchy since the heady days of Punk, but it is central to V's character, and seems jettisoned all too readily here. But so it goes - I wasn't really expecting a movie to retain the original's politics, and no reason why it should.

However, my big problem with the movie happens in V's death scene with Evie (of for God's sake, I TOLD you there would be spoilers). Here it's revealed, in a scene of staggeringly lachrymose sentimentality, that V's entire world view has been changed by falling in love with Evey. This is stupid. Nothing better I can say about it.

One of my personal Gods, William Goldman, explains in "Which Lie Did I Tell?" exactly how you could kill "Casablanca". What you do is give Rick some background, some human interest - have Reynauld explain how Rick's business in the States went belly up, how his marriage turned to shit, so he went to Casino school and moved to Casablanca. Goldman says that this moves Rick from being the mysterious hero to being just another schmuck, and kills the character and the film. And I agree - as soon as V says that his motivations, his world view, has been changed (and was changed when they first met) by his love for a 16 year old bit of totty, then the movie collapses. I was so cross about this that it spoiled my enjoyment of a couple of visually gorgeous moments at the end of the movie. By this time I was so pissed off that I bitterly resented the use of the Stones' "Street Fighting Man" to close the movie when "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who would have been a much more grown up choice.

While I'm digging, there's possibly a deeper philosophical problem with the movie. It's thesis, so far as I can make out, is that the common man will overcome unjust government, given inspiration and a weakened opposition. This seems, to be frank, to be Hollywood optimism at its worst. Moore's original vision that the best that could be provided is a state of anarchy uncontrolled by Facism was more honest, and a lot more likely.

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<end/lj-cut>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Well, this will be riddled with what are generally called Spoilers, so most of it will hide behind an lj cut, but the short review is see it and make your won damned mind up.

<lj-cut>

....and having said that....

This was within a hair of being an absolutely wonderful movie. Something well above the ordinary, and worth seeing for its dark and well realised mood and wonderful visual flair. And it was very well lit.

A nice person would leave it there, and when I next come across a nice person I'll ask her to confirm that. I have a huge problem with this intelligent, handsome, and thought provoking movie, which is possibly entirely down to my familiarity with the source material, and the feeling that this movie doesn't so much betray that material as dress it up nice, tell it how wonderful it is, and then pimp it to donkeys.

For about 80 minutes or so I enjoyed the fact that the screen play had made some hard choices about the story, but had given us a slimmed down narrative that condensed the original novel so that it made sense as a movie - in the same way that LA Confidential drops two thirds of Elroy's novel, and steals its climax from another of his books but does no violence to the spirit of the original.

I was a little troubled by how little Anarchy features in the movie - there is a lot of referrence to V the Terrorist, to Chaos being created, but only one overt mention of anarchy, and that's in a throw away line. Now, admittedly, I've had a bee in my bonnet about anarchy since the heady days of Punk, but it is central to V's character, and seems jettisoned all too readily here. But so it goes - I wasn't really expecting a movie to retain the original's politics, and no reason why it should.

However, my big problem with the movie happens in V's death scene with Evie (of for God's sake, I TOLD you there would be spoilers). Here it's revealed, in a scene of staggeringly lachrymose sentimentality, that V's entire world view has been changed by falling in love with Evey. This is stupid. Nothing better I can say about it.

One of my personal Gods, William Goldman, explains in "Which Lie Did I Tell?" exactly how you could kill "Casablanca". What you do is give Rick some background, some human interest - have Reynauld explain how Rick's business in the States went belly up, how his marriage turned to shit, so he went to Casino school and moved to Casablanca. Goldman says that this moves Rick from being the mysterious hero to being just another schmuck, and kills the character and the film. And I agree - as soon as V says that his motivations, his world view, has been changed (and was changed when they first met) by his love for a 16 year old bit of totty, then the movie collapses. I was so cross about this that it spoiled my enjoyment of a couple of visually gorgeous moments at the end of the movie. By this time I was so pissed off that I bitterly resented the use of the Stones' "Street Fighting Man" to close the movie when "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who would have been a much more grown up choice.

While I'm digging, there's possibly a deeper philosophical problem with the movie. It's thesis, so far as I can make out, is that the common man will overcome unjust government, given inspiration and a weakened opposition. This seems, to be frank, to be Hollywood optimism at its worst. Moore's original vision that the best that could be provided is a state of anarchy uncontrolled by Facism was more honest, and a lot more likely.

<end/lj-cut>

Still, I day go see it.