V for Vendetta is good, while it should have been great.

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2007)

V for Vendetta - despite the obviously good basic story, for which and for the great performances I give 7 points- is somehow not well done. I do not wonder Alan Moore, the creator of V refused any association with this adaptation.
Thus in the following I shall try to only criticize the movie as it was made, and leave the comic as such alone.
Hugo Weaving is a fine actor and it is a very unrewarding task to accept a role of a man in a mask because it could- technically - be just anybody else. The same was true for Edward Norton when he did the part of King Baldwin in Kingdom of Heaven. It is rare that a man in a mask can be remembered for additional features such as singing as Gerard Butler in the Phantom of the Opera. So all together, very brave of Hugo Weaving, and I am sorry we did not get to see any of him.
The genre is unclear and undefined. It is not a drama as Children of Men, as V chooses death over a life with Evey, who loves her. It is not a profound criticism of our civilization as such- well, maybe it is for the English, anyway-, as 1984. It is not an action-flick in the sense of Matrix - the parts meant to be action are rare and understated. The story (interpreted by the Wachowsky Brothers) is not as fascinating as that of the Island, for example. It tries to get the best of all these and ends up using the worst clichés of all.
At some points, the story-telling obviously stumbles.
There is the end scene, where all dead (who made their very own sacrifice and should be honored and left alone) are standing within the amazed crowd again. I really tried to see this as some sort of statement relating to the disturbing and stupid monologue Evey has to deliver at the end on the topic "V was all of us". My attempt failed and it still looked stupid.
And why does no one (the parents of Evey, Deitrich, the girl whose story Evey reads while she is in prison) ever try to flee in this movie? Evereybody is sitting and having a cup of tea, waiting for the guys with the black bags to arrive.
Why is V so kind with the lady he kills, who is obviously one of the key figures that lead to his deformation and torture? Obviously we are supposed to understand that he is a gentleman.
Why does V tell the police officer that he has been waiting for him all these years??? What does that police officer do, anyway? And the ultimate goof where I really had to laugh out loud- the slowing-down and Matrix-like falling of the raindrops when Evey is freed from prison, as well as the slow motion burning of the fire from where V had to escape, put together- we would have seen the parallel anyway, thank you, those 10 minutes or so would not have been necessary. Ant the fact that Evey even uttered "God is in the rain" - a touching sentence which has been read by her just 10 sec. ago so everybody still remembered it- is an insult and seriously damages this climax of the plot.
Further, I have to mention that I can not imagine where on earth Evey found those roses in the underground to put on the deathbed of V. Maybe I just missed something.
Higlights are the Benny Hill-tribute of Stephen Fry's character, V's monologues and fencing, and Natalie Portman.
V for Vendetta as a movie is good, but it is the subject matter that is great. There go the credits.