V for Vendetta

NOTE: I'm not really all that good at knowing what constitutes a spoiler, and I'm not prone to worry about it all that much. You might see the movie before reading this review if such things concern you.

So, first things first. I don't know if it's an omen or not regarding the movie's box office, but at the 10pm screening last night, there were maybe 15 people or so in attendance. I was shocked, really, at the sparse corwd, because I think the marketing campaign has been pretty strong. Perhaps it's simply a case of me projecting my own anticipation onto others.

With that out of the way, I'm afraid that I'm fairly disappointed with the film on the whole. There are ideas here that lead me to think that this could have been a great film, and there are moments here and there that almost deliver on that promise. But ultimately, it falls short of the mark.

The biggest problem is the character of V. I'm sure that sounds hard to believe, since his character is what appealed to me in the first place. But as played by Hugo Weaving, he's a bit of a clown. He starts on the completely wrong foot, delivering a silly alliterative monologue (all the words start with V, ha ha!) in his very first scene, and flipping eggs for Natalie Portman in the next. It's a terribly misguided introduction to the character. While things get better later in the movie, the first impression stuck with me, making it hard to really take this character seriously.

V's motivations were also problematic for me. The idea of a citizen uprising against their government is a provocative one in the times we're in, but I felt that the movie was frequently distracted from this theme. There are a lot of murky flashback scenes that kinda, sorta explain V's origins, which I found unnecessary. They make V's vendetta seem more personal and less social-minded, and at times it seems that it's not fascism and oppression that bothers V so much as the individual fascists and oppressors. It begs the question, would he have a problem had he not been so terribly mistreated? I think it's a bit of a philosophical copout to ask that question and not deal with it, but it's not hard to assume that the guys who thought "knife time" would be really cool didn't even realize they were asking it. There's a big difference between "freedom fighter" and "avenging angel"; the movie is never able to reconcile those roles for V, and doesn't really even try.

It also doesn't help matters that the government "party members" are so often cartoonish. John Hurt's High Chancellor is all sneering and ranting, even in the flashback scenes when he's still running for office. I just didn't find it convincing that he could have won the trust of the people, especially in the hard times during which he came to power. Roger Allam's broadcaster and John Standing's pedophile priest are also way over the top. Again, it's kind of a copout to give people like this such transparently evil traits, as if a top role in an oppressive fascist government is no big deal by itself.

All that said, there are some great moments. Natalie Portman's head-shaving torture scenes are completely frightening without being overly graphic and misogynist, and the letter she finds during these scenes comes as close as this movie ever does to making the fundamental case against fascism. V's scene with Sinead Cusack, who plays a doctor from the old days, is quite powerful, and shows that the "avenging angel" storyline could have worked fine on its own. And Stephen Rea's chief inspector has a compelling storyline all by himself, as a man who's just starting to wake up to the evil around him.

As a final note, I take it that it's widely assumed that the Wachowski Brothers were the ones that really made this movie, despite James McTeigue's name in the credits as director. I would doubt that very much. The action scenes here are very choppy, and at times downright amateurish. There's none of the slick elegance found in the Matrix movies.

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