What a truly awful mess of a film. If this got made, it gives us all hope...

Rating: 1/10 (14 March 2006)

I have just seen this at a private screening and was hoping for great things. The general consensus was - How on earth did this get made??? 'V' is easily the longest 2 hours 10 minutes I've ever spent in a cinema. The whole thing is very short on action, and ridiculously long on tedium. A colleague I saw it with - an apolitical Australian - dubbed it 'The worst film I have ever seen..' He wasn't alone.
Where to start?
1/. Well, FOUR script writers. And not one of them with a decent writing credit to their name. Yes, I know there are loads of sad guys with no girlfriends out there, who think The Matrix is a work of mystical genius. It isn't. It is a film that stupid people think is clever. 'V' is the same, but without the good bits. I haven't read the comic novel on which it's based, but I understand the author has disassociated himself from it. AFter five minutes you can see why. From the off we are hit with ranting, heavy-handed, pretentious, meaningless drivel masquerading as commentary or satire, or allegory? God only knows. But given the hysteria of the writing teams' message, you wonder what sort of government such rabid parochialists would form given the chance.. What is obvious, after an interminable first third is: THE SCRIPT IS A MESS. The writers cannot tell a story and leave vast holes in the plot. My guess is they had neither the money, nor the will, to hire a decent script doctor. It would have been expensive.
2/. Hugo Weaving in a rubbish mask is irritating after two minutes. After two HOURS, you've lost the will to live. 'Hey Larry (and the other one). PLASTIC MASKS CAN'T ACT. They're static, and in movies, static=boring. But even his fight scenes were badly choreographed and badly directed.
3/. The whole film looks like it was made for TV. The first scene has a set like a 1970s Hammer horror. We in Britain were used to this sort of thing 20 years ago. Is London supposed to be desolate and oppressed as it would be under a totalitarian regime? If so, what was the production designer doing?
4/. What year is it set in? It's meant to be 20-30 years in the future and yet the police are still using old Dell computers, driving five year old Rovers and using current mobile phones. Details like these added to the veneer of cheapness.
5/. Plot. In Wachowskis' England there is one family, one grotty pub, two policeman who live in an office, five politicians and this girl - Ms Portman - whose parents have been killed by an evil totalitarian government because they protested against the war or something. But the government are bioterrorists experimenting on dissidents until one day there's a big explosion (not sure why) and then a nerve agent kills 100,000 people, (or is it 80,000, we get told both figures) which is falsely pinned on Muslim extremists and then John Hurt becomes Hitler on a chat show and we've still got an hour to go..... I MEAN IT IS SO MUCH JUVENILE RUBBISH. How old are these writers?
6/. Actors. Natalie Portman. Yes, she does a perfectly decent job with a script so full of holes and containing so many terrible lines you actually feel for her. Her accent was fine and I hope she got paid well for this, because she is at sea with this ludicrous script. Scarlett Johanssen and Bryce Dallas Howard - count yourselves lucky. John Hurt is great in these sorts of roles (Contact) Here he was terrible. One dimensional, shouty nonsense does not a performance make. Not in the least bit convincing, or unlikeable. The other bit part actors were pretty low rent, you don't even see them on TV in the UK. Even Stephen Rea was laughable on occasion.
7/. OK, what is the point? Governments are evil? Totalitarianism is a bit unpleasant? Revolution will save us all? Or worse - and I think this is what our angst-ridden writers are getting at - 9/11 was a Bush plot. How original. Simplistic, Hollywood liberalism is eating itself alive right there, up on the screen.....
8/. Cheap, cheap, cheap. 'V' for Vendetta cost $50m. Natalie aside, the acting is so second rate you know the budget didn't go there, the production values were sub made for TV standard, there are no Matrix sfx to speak of, so I guess the cash went on blowing up the Houses of Parliament (still not quite sure why) and shutting down St James' on a Monday night. $50m is cheap by Batman Begins standards. But it looks like it cost half that. And BB is a ten times the film this mess is. The good side? It will make money for fat Joel and his band tedious fat cats.
9/. Do we really need a movie for spotty, Chomsky groupies? The downside of the web has been the growth of the conspiracy theory racket. This has always been lucrative Wachowski territory and their constituency will flock to this nonsense and proclaim it a work of genius. For these people, movies like this aren't really entertainment, they are a confirmation of their own simplistic, childish beliefs in scenarios created out of low self-esteem, paranoia, social failure, limited intellect and laziness. This one's for them.
10/. V for Vendetta commits the greatest crime in movies. It is boring. Bad story telling is boring. Bad preaching is boring, bad acting is boring. This has all three. I was a guest at the screening I saw so I couldn't leave, and had to watch the whole thing. Someone behind me summed it up. With 30 minutes to go, they hissed 'For the love of God. End now.'