An embarrassment to its creator

Rating: 6/10 (22 June 2006)

In spite of myself, I was completely geeked up about the movie adaptation of one of my favourite comics. I can only blame this on a very effective advertising campaign (the site was neat, the retro design on the posters very attractive and news on the movie hard to come by), since every prior Alan Moore adaptation has suffered horribly at the hands of Hollywood. In addition to which was the directorial debut of an AD from such abominations as the 'Star Wars' prequels and 'The Matrix' trilogy. Still, despite these warning signs, when it was finally time for the movie, I was quite excited. (Regrettably, it was only after seeing it that I heard Moore had disowned the project!) Knowing I'd most likely be disappointed, though, I tried to separate the film from its original source material (which it almost entirely betrays, for some reason) and view it simply as a sci-fi action movie (which I'd almost never watch otherwise). I know: impossible, right? I thought I could do it, and I don't know if I was up to the task. I'll concede that Hugo Weaving was an apt choice for V. He does a nice job with a difficult character, only occasionally descending to hamminess. I was curious to see what Natalie Portman would do with Evey, and was completely let down. She was entirely too attractive for the role of Little Miss Average, and I can never accept her all-too-subtle English accent (this was supposed to be a lower middle class girl, after all, and she plays it like she went to Oxford). I understand that, in order to have an almost all-English cast, the filmmakers had to score some American star power, but surely there could have been someone else (was Jena Malone busy?). McTeigue's direction is all you'd expect it to be: effects heavy and lacking moving artistic perception. I imagine this film looks great in stills, and that's how he (and his mentors the Wachowskis) sets up shots: as images, not as motion. So much of the camera-work -- to say nothing of the effects -- was gratuitous and done solely for 'wow-factor' in a story that would otherwise have been too quite for the mythical American audience to handle. That, it seems, is at the root of the problem with this film: it was engineered, once again, for the eternally underestimated American filmgoing audience. So often, Hollywood betrays sharp original material in pursuit of what is desired by a fictitious audience it's created itself. This only results in the worst kind of movies, and 'V for Vendetta' is a perfect example of this. The original material was fine, and probably as close as Alan Moore will ever have gotten to a made-for-film comic. All it would've taken to make it filmable was to excise some of the enriching subplots (the doctor's story, the homelives of the party members, the 'Evita' style power grab by the wife) and shooting what was left. And it comes close here, but just has to monkey with it. In the end, this was an attractive movie for a dumbed-down audience. I'm constantly shocked by how many people who've read the original book think this is a good adaptation. The movie takes the basic material and ruins it, so I really think it should only be considered on its own. Even in that light, however, this clunker falls flat. Nice mask, though...