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Monday, March 20, 2006

Movie Review: V For Vendetta

As this movie is currently stirring up a decent amount of controversy, I truly expected more. For starters, I don't think that the controversy is warranted, as the "issue" that everyone is talking about isn't really pulled off all that well.

Let me back up a bit. A few days ago, a friend and I were discussing movies, and how we look at them differently the older we get. For me, I want a movie to be one way or the other - i.e., either completely serious, or completely over-the-top stupid and un-realistic. If I am going to suspend belief in reality, a film needs to go all the way with it (Star Wars, X-Men, Batman, etc.). If, however, it tries to have a message and be serious, I would like it to be firmly based in reality. This is where Vendetta falls short.

It is obvious the correlation to current events that the producers/writers tried to make - creating a world where fear has lead a religious, conservative leader to take away the freedom of the people via censored news, curfews, and the rounding up of "undesirables." The hero, "V", is a victim of this tyranny and oppression, and subsequently sets out to destroy said fascist leader/government. This is where the current controversy arises over this film. The hero is labeled a "terrorist" and uses terrorist tactics to make his mark (blowing up buildings, for example). Many have said this glorifies terrorism, and that the movie sends the wrong message because of it.

My opinion? The movie, in brutal honesty, is not smart enough to send any real "message." Here's why (glad you asked) - if you view this movie as I do (in one of the two ways I described above) you can either suspend belief in reality and not take it serious, in which case it's hard to appreciate any real "message"; or you can take it seriously, in which case you must completely ignore reality and believe that we are only ten or fifteen years away from a religious, conservative dictator ruling a western country with a fascist Nazi-esque regime. I'm sure that there are many Moveon.org fruit-cakes who subscribe to that being a serious possibility, but for those of us who can pass a drug test, that's a little far fetched.

Am I taking a movie too seriously? Quite the opposite. This is the whole point of the review; I don't think you should take this movie seriously, but unfortunately, it falls in that middle ground of not-quite-serious and not quite full-fledged-fantasy, which leaves me feeling as if it is missing something. Is there any good to it? The acting was fantastic. Hugo Weaving's dialogue is some of best I have heard in a while, and it doesn't hurt that I got to look at Natalie Portman for two hours (even if she was bald for the last thirty minutes or so). The premise of the movie is a good one, even if it just doesn't fully exploit that potential. Visually speaking, it was very, very well done. Great soundtrack, as well. Something that seems more and more rare these days.

In the end, it just left me feeling let down. As if they could have done so much more. Seeing as how this was done by the same guys who did the Matrix trilogy, this is not surprising. Vendetta is along the same lines; a movie that tries to be deep, but ends up being no more than a screen adaptation of a comic book. Definitely worth a rental, but hard to say if it's worth more than that.

Read reviews from my buddy Jason here, and Dave at Garfield Ridge here, for a different perspective, if you wish.

5 comments:

Jonathan Scott said...

I'm glad I get to be the first to respond. Dude, if you saw Natalie Portman on the Daily Show last night, you would have fallen in love with her. Definitely a grown up version the girl from the Professional and very genuine.

Man- I think you screwed yourself reading a bunch of articles and reviews before you saw it. I had no expectations, and I guess I didn't see that much controversey. A few conments were made, but the good and the bad were so obviously good and bad that any correlations drawn to current events seem ludicrous. I think if the producers were trying to produce a Sundance worthy controversy piece, they would have toned a lot of stuff down.

Just my off the cuff thoughts. Glad you pointed out the excellent dialog and great acting.

Jason Evans said...

Yeah... sounds like 6-Delta-Ancient read too much about it. Amazing how he has time to read so much with his workload...

WHAMMY!!

Jonathan Scott said...

Seeing as how Twisted hasn't posted yet, I'll assume that he's doing the other thing on his daily activity list (reading Dave at Garfield Ridge).

Actually, after an hour of racking my brain, I realized that I just reinforced the point you made in your posting. And I thought I was disagreeing with you...

Mr. Twisted said...

Actually no, I didn't read any reviews before I saw the movie for the very reason you guys mentioned. After I watched it, I just thought it fell a little flat. Then I went and read some of the reviews, which is why I mentioned the "controversy" surrounding it. But, just like how a whole bunch of people thought that The Matrix was "deep" and it really wasn't, so it goes with this picture. I just thought it could have been so much better.

(Yes, I did read enough to know what the movie was about.)

Anonymous said...

watched V for Vendetta recently, loved it. eye-candy effects, amazing how much character they developed into a mask, then again, maybe he was more than a mask...