I think I missed something

Rating: 5/10 (16 August 2006)

I just watched "V" last night after a fairly long wait. Truth be known, whatever was said about the film wasn't enough to excite me to rent in on my own but my gf wanted to see it so here goes.
Neither of us truly enjoyed it on any level, I have to say. I'm surprised everyones review is so good because it indicates that clearly I am missing something. At the core of the film, it is mostly a government conspiracy plot, politicians unleash a virus on England and then produce a cure, become rich and powerful and the person who knows the truth seeks revenge and frees England from oppression with murder and chaos. Sounds fairly cool, doesn't it? I guess my main problem with "V" is the lack of background at the beginning, and we miss a lot of "when" and "where" and "why" to actually get involved in any of that. 45 mins in the film you're still not sure who the bad guys are, what they have done and so on... There is a certain amount of knife play and SWOOSH SWOOSH CLANG CLANG, but it's all meaningless until some explanations come. So the story is not bad, but it's told backwards(shoot first and ask questions later), plus they thought it would be a good idea to add a ton of subplots to make the film more appealing(Hitler, concentration camps, gay rights, terrorists, and so on). As far as I am concerned, it does make the film denser but also more confusing for a lot of people, I'll admit, including myself.
Brilliantly shot though. Some scenes simply wowed me by their quality of lighting, editing, mostly in the intro. Art design was also very polished and it helped me engage in the film. But the bottom line is, did the story appeal to me? I have to say no. It's different and refreshing. It tries hard to stay away from conventional story-telling and bring us something unique but something just gets lost in the way. It's one of those films that just begs to be watched a second time to get all the nuances but frankly, I don't think I have it in me.
I appreciate what they did, but cannot qualify it a raving success overall. 5/10