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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

V For Vendetta (PICS)

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01:02 / 19.02.06

I've been reading some of IMDB's user comments/ film reviews for V. And they're fascinating, painting a picture of a pretty well done little film.

I'm still a bit skeptical. But god help me I love this picture.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:38 / 19.02.06

Well, it's not playing well to the Right...

Am I a bad person for thinking this is a good sign?

15:29 / 19.02.06

Absolutely not. I'm with ya, Stoat.

That's gotta be the most incoherent ramble of a movie review I've ever seen. There's so many urban myths, mendacities & outright paranoid lies in that guy's rant that I'm not genuinely curious to buy my ticket now.

These are a riot:

"I find it completely hypocritical that every time a Hollywood plot has to have a bad Islamic terrorists (which is a rarity in today’s movies anyway), it has to be balanced by a good Islamist. Not so for Christians apparently. There’s not a decent one in the entire world of “V". Talk about hateful and propagandistic. Score another one for the tolerant and sensitive Left."

"I’d love to tune-in to this post-V Revolution world in twenty years when unemployment is through the roof, crime is running rampant, and President V sends anyone who disagrees with him to the death camps."

"I don’t believe in censorship, but I have to wonder about a powerful, publicly traded company like Time-Warner greenlighting a film that tries to make a case for, if not downright promote, the destruction of government buildings."

Ahem.

16:52 / 19.02.06

HE does though, bring up the (I think valid) problem with the ending:

"Again, the unintentional irony of “V FOR VENDETTA” is that it is (or at least the philosophy of the filmmakers is) what it condemns. The proof is in the final shot. Short of “TRIUMPH OF THE WILL,” you’ll be hard pressed to find a shot of more conformist goose-steppers than the shot (see below) of the parade of masked “V” followers at the end of this film."

20:10 / 19.02.06

A quite negative review over at Variety, providing details of the revised storyline that again sink my enthusiasm:

Opening prologue shows Guy Fawkes, the Catholic conspirator who tried to blow up Parliament in 1605 and whose "treason" is remembered every Nov. 5 in the U.K. with fireworks displays.

Post-credits, story shifts to 2020, after worldwide unrest, mysterious deadly viral outbreaks and fear have caused the populace to elect a neo-fascist state, run by demagogic Chancellor Adam Sutler (John Hurt).

On Nov. 4, TV station gopher Evey (Natalie Portman) is saved from a gang of Fingermen, thuggish quasi-police agents intent on raping her, by V (Weaving), a poetry-spouting, caped avenger wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, who at midnight blows up the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court.

The government tries to spin the explosion, but V breaks into the station where Evey works and manages to get his revolutionary, anti-Sutler message broadcast, promising to blow up Parliament in exactly a year's time. While at the station, he also saves Evey from two coppers, Finch (Stephen Rea) and his sidekick Dominic (Rupert Graves), who've come to arrest her.

Pic next metronymically crosscuts between V killing off various characters who wronged him, and Finch and Dominic investigating the murders, which leads to lots of explicatory flashbacks."

23:53 / 19.02.06

Oh dear...

Plot differs substantially from the written version, which was issued complete as a graphic novel in 1989. Simplified movie version, penned by the Wachowski brothers, gamely tries to retain key plot points that will serve as mass market entertainment, while half-heartedly updating Moore's allegorical digs at Thatcher's Britain in the '80s to reflect current leftist fears...

But they kept the falling-dominoes setpiece, so that's something.

19:34 / 27.02.06

This review from Comic Book Resources seems intelligent (it's pretty positive):

I'm psyched to see a movie where a dramatic Alan Moore monologue is kept, verbatim.

21:02 / 27.02.06

Not to stick up for the woman or anything, but did Margaret Thatcher ever really 'seriously consider' setting up concentration camps for the gay community as a means of dealing with the AIDS crisis? I mean I can believe it was talked about, but probably not anywhere much outside the bar in the House of Commons.

01:04 / 28.02.06

I'm astonished by the CBR review, mostly because I know that the guy who wrote usually hates everything. And usually with good reason.

I've run across Adi on many message boards, and he's a very sharp and demanding critic—very bright guy, unforgiving, ruthless, can smell bullshit a mile away. I mean, you guys might think *I* know how to get my hate on, but Adi is The Master. If Adi likes it, man, this picture must be the mutt's nuts.

18:39 / 28.02.06

Just got fwded a review from James Wolcott of Vanity Fair.

His prostatic fluid runs deep and humid through the theater aisles:

To say that I found the domino montage as thrilling a coup de cinema as I’ve seen since DePalma first displayed his slashing mastery of crosscutting is to sound cryptic, but to be unelliptical I’d have to explain too much and wreck your fun. And make no mistake V for Vendetta is fun, dangerous fun, percussive with brutality and laced with ironic ambiguity and satirical slapstick (a Benny Hill homage, no less!). But gives the movie its rebel power is
the moral seriousnessthat drives the action, emotion, and allegory.
That’s what I didn’t expect from the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix), this angry, summoning Tom Paine moral dispatch that puts our pundits, politicians, and cable news hosts to shame. V for Vendetta instills force into the very essence of four-letter words like hate, love, and especially) fear, and releases that force like a fist. Off come the masks, and the faces are revealed.

What's really funny, to me, is that he talks about how amaaaazing it is that the film comments with such precision about the black hoods of Abu Ghraib, fertilizer bombs of Timothy McVeigh and even a Silvio Berlusconi-esque fascist TV personality. When we proud and happy geeks know that all those things were written before the events they're commenting on. Because Alan Moore knows magick, naturally.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:54 / 28.02.06

He knows the score, certainly.

19:26 / 28.02.06

At the New York Comic Con over the weekend I asked someone fairly intimately involved with V For Vendetta - whom I will respectfully leave nameless - for an opinion of the film. The answer was that the bits that were made up for the film were disappointing and didn't work, but that the parts that were faithfully adapted - of which, apparently, there are many - were great. Overall the verdict was that the film is good, and worth seeing.

20:54 / 28.02.06

I'm not sure I'm convinced that by making thinly veiled commentary about the "War on Terrorism" and its many consequences, attempting to "update" the material is really worthy of any praise. I know I'm not the mainstream but I'd fond of subtler roads, letting timeless material stand on its own legs and letting me figure everything out on my own.

But like Jack Fear I'm astonished at Adi's review. I saw his name before reading it and was rubbing my hands in glee waiting for him to methodically piss on the Wachowskis.

I left cbr a little underwhelmed and actually thought for the first time that it might really have redeeming qualities and if Adi thinks its worth seeing I could very well have the same opinion. Before reading it I wasnt sure I was going to watch this because I dont really care about comicbook films and havent seen any of the Moore adaptations but now I think I might make the opening weekend.

But I wonder how I'll be able to feel that way if the bit with "Are you like a crazy person or something?" is in the final film.

03:21 / 01.03.06

Vendetta posters:

I especially enjoy the last one.

03:51 / 01.03.06

Those were posted months ago, on page 9...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:28 / 01.03.06

Wallulah's Whimsy said: I'm not sure I'm convinced that by making thinly veiled commentary about the "War on Terrorism" and its many consequences, attempting to "update" the material is really worthy of any praise.

Indeed. Not knocking it before I've seen it, but surely one of the points of dystopian social comment like VFV (or indeed 1984) is to serve as a warning for the future? Therefore the idea that This May Be Relevant To How You're Living Now is already implicit. In a way (although without the "predictive" aspect) it's like M*A*S*H- although it was set in Korea, everyone knew it was actually *about* Vietnam. They didn't put signposts in there.

I must say, Cameron, your friend's comments sound kind of like how I'm imagining it will be (based purely on reviews and my own personal prejudices about adaptations!) I'm really looking forward to it now, but braced for disappointment.

13:29 / 01.03.06

Oops. Guess I missed that link.

19:06 / 01.03.06

A rave review by James Wolcott (who never read the comic):

V for Vendetta may be--why hedge? is--the most subversive cinematic deed of the Bush-Blair era, a dagger poised in midair. Unlike the other movies dubbed "controversial" (Fahrenheit 9-11, The Passion, Munich, Syriana), it doesn’t play to a particular constituency or polarized culture bloc, it's working on a deeper, Edger Allen Poe-ish witch's brew substrata of pop myth. . . .

V for Vendetta doesn’t just depict a 1984's dystopia--it advocates radical remedy, and illustrates what it advocates with rhapsodic, operatic, orgasmic flourish. It follows the course of its own logic to its Kubrickian conclusion, but this isn’t a clinical exercise, like Kubrick at his most voyeuristically detached. This movie is fully engaged. Its masked, caped vigilante is both Batman and Joker, nocturnal enigma and nimble trickster, the Count of Monte Cristo, Zorro, and the Phantom of the Opera tucked into one suavely tormented frame, the antihero's secret lair a gothic sanctuary equipped with its own Wurtlizer jukebox on which Julie London's Cry Me a River sultrily plays.

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2006/02/the_red_and_the.php

13:14 / 03.03.06

Fox News, the real-life Voice of Fate, surprisingly doesn't disapprove of the film.

Also, here's 6 (low-quality) clips, which are a bit spoilery I suppose, as far as the new material written for the film goes. One of them shows how all those people at get the V masks...

19:51 / 03.03.06

from the aforementioned Fox review:

Why Moore didn’t want a “based on” credit beats me. After all, a lot of his dialogue survived. I think he’ll regret that move.

I like to laff.

06:15 / 04.03.06

The above quote where someone's failing to comprehend integrity or artistic whim, and presuming Moore'll suffer for it, make me love Alan Moore far more than nearly anything he's ever done, himself. Moore's near-fits and tics, in fact, make me love him far more than any of his fictions.
There's a new 'Swamp Thing' in the works, apparently, and plenty of ABC titles to splash up on the cinema screen. All we need is Ron Howard to direct 'Lost Girls' from a script by the 'Planet of the Apes'remake team, and Alan Moore might give his greatest performance of all time.

17:57 / 04.03.06

An incredibly gushingly positive review, calling it "flawless" and "the best film of 2006."

Man, I really hope I feel the same way. I'm all over the place now, one the one hand still disappointed at the changes and very cautious about getting my hopes up, and on the other, really fucking excited.

19:32 / 04.03.06

At IMDB the film's getting good 'grades'. I used to go at IMDB in my teen years for reliable 'numbers-opinions' but nowadays I don't trust it that much anymore.

I hope the film's as good as a "7.6" used to be at it's golden age.

09:41 / 05.03.06

From Cam's review link.
Perhaps had Wilder made a massive CG action movie, he could have gotten there. Steven Spielberg might do it one day. M. Night Shyamalan has convinced himself that he already has. Jim Cameron is all about love and metal. Soderbergh is too good at intimacy to try for it. We have hope for others, like Fincher, whose Fight Club is a brilliant, but coarser, less accessible variation on this theme. But at the risk of invoking Kubrick twice in one week, I wonder whether A Clockwork Orange felt like this when it was first released. Clockwork is a very entertaining movie, really, painful as some sequences are. But even that film is tougher to take than this one. The Wachowskis know just how big a spoonful of sugar will make the medicine go down without you ever knowing you were taking any medicine. (Thank goodness they are decent, spiritually generous men… from frickin' Chicago… who like to blow shit up.)
There is hope?

19:24 / 05.03.06

3/5 in this month's 'Uncut' magazine;

While many of Moore's concerns remain intact - oppression of minority groups, legitimacy of governments - the rendering here is vastly reductive, and strong performances elsewhere are undermined by broad brushstrokes. It shares the stylistic panache of The Matrix movies, though it's unlikely to provoke the kind of debate Moore's original text intended.

I appreciate that for some on this board 'Uncut' magazine might be aptly relaunched as 'Satan's Cock Monthly,' but the movie reviews are usually quite reliable... If nothing else, I've no doubt I'll watch this when it comes out on vid, but I just can't decide if I should see it in the cinema - I don't go that often, and there seems to be a lot of other good stuff on release at the moment, so...

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

20:39 / 05.03.06

What's this about turning the Nazi-style genocide of all racial and social minorities into some AIDS-style plague to kill off anyone questioning the government?

Bah, I say.

I do love the uber-conservative review of the film, though. Laughed my ass off. Once again its those evil Liberals trying to destroy our society with their silly movies! (I still recall the online info for the book "Mom! There are LIBERALS Under My Bed!").

22:03 / 05.03.06

I think "Freedom Forever!" is the movie's version of the wonderfully poetic "England Prevails!" but it sounds more like New Hampshire's horrid shit motto "LIVE FREE OR DIE!"

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

03:23 / 06.03.06

"England Prevails" was a great line. Especially when said by slightly crazed officials ending their transmissions to each other.

04:13 / 06.03.06

Is V for Vendetta a british film? Can anything be a british film that tries its hardest to aim for the yank wallet?

It should be a british film. I would say a brit should've made it but I've never really been desperate to see anything adapted from one medium to another. Alan Moore's reaction to the script makes me think this way.

England prevails like all great phrases had a duality about it which not only served the villains but in the people of England. I cant find anything mildly appealing about Freedom Forever and it sounds like its written for the yanks who are proud of shit like "LIVE FREE OR DIE!" Which might make sense since the filmmakers are american.

I think I'll stop sneering at the monitor now as there's been a shift in expectations in this thread including my own.

Harold Washington died for you

08:12 / 06.03.06

"Live Free or Die" was a revolutionary motto. If you do not understand the power of this message to an American you are missing a vital part of the "American character". Especially the "American Left" in this crazy age. That is why this movie will be a big cult hit for years. The idea of sacrificing everything for an ideal is in the hearts of all thoughtful Americans, especially those who hate their current government (whatever it may be).

It's sorta sad the original text is so down on Christianity, because that will be the hook that is used to nail the movie to the shit wall. The Wachawskys are important filmmakers because they are trying to root out this revolutionary streak we in the US have been bred with.

12:12 / 06.03.06

What's this about turning the Nazi-style genocide of all racial and social minorities into some AIDS-style plague to kill off anyone questioning the government?

See, I read that as a plague creating the social disorder that allowed the fascists to take power in the first place.

In the original story, that fulcrum role was played by a "limited" nuclear war. And knowing now what we do about the science of such a thing, it's really not plausible. Moore himself admits as much in the prologue. So don't blame the Wachowskis for that one.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:13 / 06.03.06

It's sorta sad the original text is so down on Christianity

I don't really agree.

See, while as far as I know, Moore himself isn't really a big fan of Christianity, I don't really think it's a thread in V For Vendetta- yeah, there's the nonce archbishop, but I've never read him as being representative of the faith- the faith itself is fairly irrelevant; Moore uses him (as did De Sade) as an example of Those To Whom We Should Look Up actually being an objectionable bastard, and barely worthy of our contempt.

I know it's kind of a reader response thing, though, so I won't take offence if you don't agree.

16:01 / 06.03.06

Didnt V make the Archbishop eat a poisoned communion wafer?
arguing that there wouldnt be any con/trans/whateversubstantiation and archbishop would die.Which IMO seemed a bit crude and materialist, and anti-christian.

16:02 / 06.03.06

I believe Norsefire, the political party that had siezed power in the original V for Vendetta was supposed to be have a Christian, ayrian base...

But yes, I don't see any particular reason why it is be 'sad' that the original text is 'so down' on Christianity...

And on a side note - over the next week The Guardian is going to be hosting an exhibition of David Lloyd's original V for Vendetta artwork... sadly the interview is already oversubscribed...

17:31 / 06.03.06

I always read the transub/no-transubstantiation scene as being one of veracity, and not indicative of whether christianity in all or any form(s) was valid. Bad Christian, no flesh of Christ for you!
Can anybody confirm the amount of religious aspect retained in the translation to film? Did they pull a 'Road to Perdition' and just vacuum clean any Jesus-icity, positive or condemningly critical?

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