A nice one

Rating: 6/10 (13 April 2006)

V for Vendetta is a nice movie, and in my opinion better than the Matrix (or at least part 2 and 3 of that trilogy). It excels in delivering astonishing visuals and a different approach to the politically engaged movie making. The drawbacks, however, reminded me a lot of the Matrix trilogy. First of all, there is this enormous amount of intellectual blah. Intelligent movies convince the viewer of their wisdom by not constantly trying too hard to be that clever picture. This is not the case with V for Vendetta, and what is left is a lot of pretentious gibberish that may lead some viewers to believe that they are clever for understanding this movie, but nothing more than that. Secondly, human interaction and behaviour is not at all present. When I think about the characters of V for Vendetta, I think of nicely drawn comic characters. I know the story is based on a comic, but moving images require a whole other type of dialogue than still drawings. Also, I had problems with the masked protagonist and the bigger-than-life voice that supports it. Natalie Portman wasn't too convincing either with whatever accent it was she was trying to utter. Finally, comic-to-movie translations work as well as novel-to-movie translations, which means they don't work at all, except for those few exceptions of brilliance. V for Vendetta isn't one, but worth a watch in the end for its original value.