If V is for Vendetta, then D is for Dull

I went to a screening of “V for Vendetta” last night and if you thought the “Matrix Trilogy” was bad then "V" will have you pulling your hair out like your name was Natalie Portman. Who by the way, wasn't the worst thing in this movie, which is kind of scary considering what an awful actress she has turned out to be.
The movie comes across as little more than an “anarchy sticker” stuck on the bottom of some suburban punks’ skateboard to look cool. Just like the suburban punk, the Wachowskis don’t really believe in what they are displaying, they’re just doing it to look cool. I wanted to write a full review for this ambiguous waste of time and celluloid but unfortunately my schedule dictates that I write a "quicky review".
While "V" is completely unfaithful to comic book it was based upon, that is hardly its biggest crime. Come to think of it, compared to majority of this flicks offenses its little more than petty theft. “V for Vendetta” is remembered less for being a great comic book and more for being the work of a great comic book writer; Alan Moore. While nowhere near as good a book as his prior comics that were turned into films (“From Hell” and “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”), “V” does follow in suit as a yet another terrible and mishandled film based on Moore’s writing. While nobody would consider the Wachowski brothers to be more than glorified video game creators, I was actually curious as to how they would handle adapting a script for a book overflowing with dialogue and light on flashy graphics. Where as the “Matrix” films are completely style over substance, the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” has countless scenes devoid of action or explosions but full of rich dialogue and character evolution. Unfortunately the brothers Wachowski, along with their partner in crime director James McTeigue screw it up so badly that if this film were ever shown in a football stadium, it could qualify as the longest fumble in NFL history.
For a film that’s supposed to be coated in rebellion and anarchy McTeigue and the Wachowski’s never really give you a reason to believe in the terrorist hero V or his attacks on Parliament. Instead of giving you emotional and character driven reasons to come to conclusions on the cast, McTeigue and company visually shove it down your throat. You know John Hurt is bad because he’s on a giant screen with huge black pupils (to show he’s evil, cant you see how evil that is?) and that Portman is good because she is attractive and V is good because he causes explosions and painfully goes out of his way to attempt to illicit laughter from the audience. Not a single character in this has an ounce of reality to them let alone passion for anything going on around them. And why didn’t they rerecord weaving’s voice; half of V’s dialogue is completely muffled due to the mask.
Bloated, self important and without any meaning is all you have to remember about the 5th of November.

i guess we can burn hugo weaving in effigy in tribute to the mask that he wears, then.

what a terrible movie:

1) tyler was right--the sound mix buried v's voice. while this was "realistic" since he wore a mask all the time, it was difficult to understand about 50% of his dialogue.

2) natalie portman still can't act. her accent was terrible, too.

3) the use of the 1812 overture is stupid. it's as dumb as the united states playing it every fourth of july. the 1812 overture celebrates something specific in history, and allusions should make sense instead of simply having music that sounds "cool".

4) while guy fawkes and his fellow catholics did suffer religious persecution at the hands of english protestants, the movie completely ignores the historical circumstances of prostestant/catholic tensions. at the time, france and spain were trying to subjugate england. some english people actually wanted to see a french or spanish monarch rule over england. therefore, the division in england was about more than religion--it was about national identity. in this instance, focusing only on the civil-rights aspect of the guy-fawkes issue is an over-simplification of matters.

5) the movie was too damn long.

6) the police inspector talking about being able to "feel everything" was stupid blathering.

7) the action sequences were terrible. i couldn't understand anything other than the fact that some people were dying.

8 ) v's mumbo-jumbo about cause and effect, a horrible repeat from the "matrix" trilogy. yes, there's cause and effect in the world, but so what? the wachowskis don't have anything substantive to say about the matter, no matter how many philosophical treatises they've read.

9) forcing a love story into the overall narrative was so lame. the wachowskis think that they're bad-asses, but their movies always end with "i did this because i love you" speeches. this is as conventional as hollywood movies get.

this movie gets a 3 out of 10 from me.

**this movie gets a 3 out of 10 from me.**


Some of us had better things to do than to see the damn thing on its opening weekend.

chris,

i think you know the reason why i bothered to see another wachowski movie.

eddie

You still have a crush on Hugo Weaving?

A lot of musicans lose their edge when they get rich. It happens to filmmakers too. Everyone I have talked to was greatly disappointed by this film. A shame, though. I really wanted to see it. But that's why there's HBO

[Post edited by Johnson316 on Mar 21, 2006]

hahahahahahahahaha

How about The Pretentious Self-Masturbatory Lunkheads?

Heck, I don't care if Larry wants to switch genders. Better he spend his time on that than making more crappy movies. I just wonder if they still can be called the Wachowski brothers. Maybe just the Wachowskis. Then again, who cares?

since the Wachowski's genders are anyone's guess I think I'll just start calling them the Wachowski triplets, it takes a swipe at their questionable gender and at the fact that "V"'s director James McTeigue may not even exist and is just the brother/sister.

And Eddie, I don't need to see the two hour version of the rave orgy... I Lived It!

josh,

there are also rumors that he had operations to alter his body.

not that the person's private life should matter (unless he's harming other people) when judging his/her art, but the art in question stinks so bad that his/her personal life is more interesting than asking questions about his/her movies.

eddie

Eddie,

Wouldn't he technically be a transvestite, then? Eddie Izzard covers that quite well... brilliant comedian. ;)

- Josh

yes, one of them dresses as a woman and is living with a dominatrix.

Sorry, one of the brothers is a lesbian?

Not too fond of any of their movies myself, their films seem too pretentious so that they're annoying.

it's dumb. the wachowskis' movies are filled with lesbian imagery, but journalists aren't allowed to ask about the fact that one of them is essentially living as a lesbian now even though the movies are clearly autobiographical in nature.

Can we really still call them both the Wachowski _brothers_ these days?

"Bound" was actually a decent movie.

tyler,

i know you want to see "the matrix reloaded extended edition", in which the rave orgy runs for two hours. ;)

eddie

Eddie,
Thank You for the back up on calling this shined up turd the piece of crap it truly is. Everyone and I do mean everyone (even my own girlfriend) either enjoyed or loved this movie.
This has caused me to greatly reconsider my group of friends.
Glad I'm not insane, I told everyone I knew how awful it was and everyone still went to see it and the all came back pleased saying I was biased because of my intense hatred for those failed comic book writers the Wachowski Brothers.
But I feel I can hold my head high once and once more proclaim from the tallest mountain of used Matrix Revolution DVD's Everything the Wachowski's have ever done is crap and anything they ever make, produce or even glance at will be crap!
:@

So I'm gathering I should skip this and spend the weekend with, oh, I don't know...

a rusty spoon in my eye
thumbtacks in my appendages
razor blades cutting my arms
the Super Mario Brothers movie

??? ;)

I think I'll check out "Inside Man" tomorrow.

John

Wait a second, is Jason implying that the Super Mario Brothers movie is bad? How could a film starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper be anything short of brillaint?.....
Man, sacrasam sometimes just doesn't come across in print.

Hey, "Unleashed" (aka "Danny the Dog") had Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, and Bob Hoskins in what was basically an adaptation of "Frankenstein", one of the greatest English-language novels ever. It still sucked.

Tyler...it's not just bad...it's godawful...so godawful I wanted to [:.(]

God, bring back the Super Mario Brothers Supershow.

It's true, you guys are right. The sound mix was bad and hard to understand half the dialog because of that damn mask. I thought the film had a good look about it but it just delivers too conveluted of a story. It rarely made any points to sink our teeth into and ended up being more confusing rather than feeling rallied behind the main character. It was really no more than a simple tale of revenge, but it had very little substance, or too vague to make me feel connected to rooting on the hero.

I can't say I had issues with the acting as it seems passable enough. The action sequencing wasn't as bad as Batman Begins and you could at least see what was happening, but for the love of God, GIVE us some action! And as I said, I also liked the look and art of the film. It's unfortunate it couldn't have had a better flow instead of bouncing us around in additional tales to create a bigger picture of . . . well . . . nothing! Perhaps the story should have had better focus on the backdrop which was government control; however, instead we get a more personal story of one guys vengence along with Portman who just adds more trash to a story that is already a mess.

Oh, well, it's not the most major disappointment I have ever seen. Generally speaking, it wasn't that bad and certainly not a campy film for this genre, it was just dull. If dull superhero films are your thing then this film will work in every detail of your dull imagination. Honest to God, I literally dozed off a couple times in the theatre. If anything, listen to the staff members of DVDtown and save your money for rental, or not. ;)


5/10
Timmaaaaaaa! :D

[Post edited by Tim Raynor on Jul 17, 2006]

Funny you guys mention the sound mix problem, which is weird. I could hear and understand Hugo Weaving pretty well. Perhaps the problem lies in the sound setups of cinemas.

I finally saw this film today and loved every minute of it. It's a simple, romantic adventure with political overtones for the present. The only dialogue I couldn't understand was at the very beginning, the prologue, because the background music drowned out the voice. Other than that, Weaving's dialogue was perfectly clear. YCH may be right; it might be a matter of a theater's sound system.

John

John and YCH:

How do you account for the fact that every actor other than Hugo Weaving was intelligible? My guess is that cinema owners didn't conspire to mask one guy's voice. ;)

Eddie

Well if they did it would be one funny comparison to the movie wouldn't you think?

Eddie

I figure a few possibilities:

1) John and I have super ears
2) Everyone else has crap ears

But mosy likely:
3) There are always peaks and dips in the frequency response in certain spots of a room (cinemas included). This sound field is going to vary from seat to seat. I'm guessing a combinations of bad speaker setup + unfortunate seating resulted in a dip around Hugo Weaving's voice range.

EDIT: LOL @ the bad pun :D

Wait, Eddie: You mean that somebody besides Hugo Weaving said something in the film? I musta missed it.

John

John,

Unfortunately, Natalie Portman's awful attempts to sound "Bwitish" were loud and clear.

Eddie