unmitigated crap and pure liberal propaganda

Rating: 1/10 (19 March 2006)

If movies preach truthand, unfortunately, to so many people who see nothing else BUT truth when watching filmsthen apparently to have a conservative thought in your head is be equated with Hitler, to profess spiritual allegiance to the Church is to be a perverted pedophile, and to be a person of any sort of inspiration or consequence is to be gay (closet or open) or to break every rule of the book whenever you darn well please, killing whomever dares to rise against you, and inciting riots through your ill-placed, misguided message of anarchy in which who knows how many people ended up killing those around them in acting out their violence. That the film takes a shameless stance against the Church by depicting a perverted, lustful, pedophiliac bishop (oh, who's also apparently greedy and materialistic as we learned from his exorbitant salary) is merely the start of its ultra-liberal stance against anything traditional. Nevermind the fact that the Church here in America is already suffering from our own mistakes; go ahead and hit us when we're downthat's the message here. That the apparently ONLY way to be revered as a true hero and source of inspiration is to be of this ultra-liberal mindset, to take a purely anarchist stance against any form of authority, and to embrace alternative lifestyles as if to so is to be righteous and filled with virtuethis is the ultimate "moral" of this awful travesty called film. But God forbid that there be a movie made in which a conservativeeven a Catholic priestis depicted as the hero! And all of that is a critique only of the film's messageill-placed and misguided as it is. To critique the film's merits and qualities is another matter, and to start off my review there, it's simple: these supposed merits and qualities are nearly as bottom-feeding-trash as the message that is preached. First of all, clearly, the oppressive government is meant to be some sort of "Big Brother" a la 1984, and the Chancellor's rise to power is meant to be reminiscent of Hitler. Lest we have never read 1984 or have forgotten about Hitler's politics and insane social policies, every religion, including and, in some case, especially Catholicism suffered prejudice and persecution. In 1984, religion simply ceased to be (hm, sounds like the direction America's headed). Under Hitler, the Church's members suffered public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, and death (hm, sounds like America once again. I guess anti-Catholicism really is the last form of acceptable persecution in the U.S. After all, say or do anything disparaging against Judaism or Islam or Scientology or Latter-Day Saints, and you're prejudiced and should be shot on sight; do or so anything of the same sort against Catholics, and you're praised a hero. Hm. Can any sayHYPOCRISY?). And yet, in V, the ruling government embraces Catholicism as the only religion. It's tough to buy this government as truly a sort of "Big Brother" or Naziism with that sort of religious preference taking place amongst the government's ruling class. Secondly, what sorts of oppression did the film actually depict or even allude to? An imposed curfew, the banning of certain music and works of art, and discrimination against the hetero, Catholic ruling class. While this last point is never acceptable and is, in fact, horrifying to see in any society, fiction or not, the fact remains that oppressive governments in the past and today are far, far, far more oppressive even than this. The oppression depicted here is hardly extreme, and yet, V is apparently justified in destroying buildings like a maniac and killing people left and right. What was his true aim? He said that it was to free England from oppression. And yet, who were his victims? The people who were in charge of his imprisonment and torture. Is he, then, truly a savior for the common people, or is he merely just another psychopath bent on revenge? How can anyone find inspiration in that is beyond any rational thought. The one act of true heroics came and went when V saved Evey from the government agents, and at that point, he was expected to be some sort of Batman-like savior, fighting crime in the shadows of nightthat sort of thing. Does he ever do that again. Heck no. Instead, he's busy terrorizing society, prancing about with his sword to jazz music, and killing people in his madness for vengeance. Some savior! And the dialogueoh, where do I begin? The very first speech spoken by anyone just had to be by V, and was it any sort of inspirational monologue or even an explanation of why he does what he does? Absolutely not! It's a narcissistic flurry of V-words that talk only about who he is and why he's so great and why we should revere him. Wow, I bet that makes all of us wish to be so revered for being so selfish and crazy as a loon. The one quality that the film did have, I must admit, was the acting by the four principle actors: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, and John Hurt. Were it not for them, the film would be a complete failure rather than merely just rubbish. But such acting can be found elsewhere, in better movies, with better messages to preach, rather than in this tripe. See Brokeback for a gentler, more meaningful stance on the alternative lifestyles that are, in truth, oppressed by society. See Good Night and Good Luck for a far better film about an oppressive government leader and the fight against his self-righteous case. See V only if you want to see a freaky mask and a sample or two of pyrotechnics and special effects. Otherwise, don't see it at all.