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?