50 / 50 - Both Good and Bad

Rating: 5/10 (24 August 2006)

Well, what a difficult task! This is the film that has to be good, but sadly it is not. Let me subdivide all the good and bad things into two groups. Good things: 1. Natalie Portman - she has always been one of my all-time favorite actresses. And here she plays with a great gusto, with such unrestrained passion that you feel what she feels - pain, joy, stupor. Even bald, she is awesome! 2. Inspector Finch's part - the best role here, in fact. The man is solid, cool and he is so full of inner pain and desire to find the truth that his part becomes nearly the central in the film. 3. The main "Baddie"- the Chancellor - looks so pathetic, but then is full of threat and evil. A good, full fledged portrait of a modern dictator, who rejects so many things but eats the forbidden food in secret. 4. The Archbishop - terrible libertine, old and full of vice. This is a great image of a lustful person who in fact has to be otherwise.
Bad things: 1. V himself. Unbearbale bore! His endless speeches were intended to be the acidic acerbic diatribes, but sound so falsely, so pathetic and so pompous that simply make you laugh. His play? Poor Hugo Weaving - does he play, after all? Nay, he just twists and shakes and fights like Neo in Matrix. C'mon, Hugo, Mr. Anderson is in another film! 2. The anti-fundamentalist sentiments. It is clear that the Wachowski Brothers are deadly afraid of the Right-Wing republican Fundamentalists, and so they picture them as a gang of Nazi-like, gay-hating, bloody liars. Come on, men! This is so obvious and so funny! Look, everybody has the right to express himself or herself freely, but your anger and hatred are so clear and so funnily childish.
In general, there is one thing that explains all - on the Bonus DVD disc there is a footage about the comics - well, if the whole film is based on comic strip, what can we await of it? 1.