This film does not entirely suck

Rating: Null/10 (25 March 2006)

I first met V during the 80s in a comic called Warrior. It was a good comic and had great stories including Madman, The Legend of Prestor John, Laser Eraser and Axel Pressbutton and Marvelman. When the comic went out of print around issue 28 it left a lot of stories up in the air. So I was really happy when Alan Moore and David Lloyd finally finished off V for Vendetta as a graphic novel. I have always credited this story for my own political outlook and because of that it always had a special significance for me- I always thought that it could work on screen but probably more as a 6 part TV mini series rather than a film. I saw this film today and the only feeling I had when I left the cinema was "bewilderment".
First off I would like to say that the characterisation and choice of actors was spot on. But within the frame of the movie I have to ask the following questions: Why was Evey not prostituting herself when picked up by the Fingermen? Where was V's exploding hand? Why wasn't Protheroe the Voice of Fate? Why was the girl that says "Bollocks" in the wrong place? Why were the roses renamed "Scarlet Carsons" from "Violet Carsons" ? Why didn't Delia Surrage ask to see V's face one last time? When seeing the Larkhill camp explosions why wasn't V's part in it made more clearer (and where was the mustard gas?) Why didn't V tell Evey that Valerie was the woman in cell IV? Why wasn't Evey naked in the rain? Why didn't Evey ask if V was her father? Why did't Finch do LSD? Why wasn't Finch the person that shot V? Why didn't Evey assume the mask (and in after that raise Dominic as the next V)? There are a lot of other "whys" but these are ones that could have at least been included in the film as it stands that would have made the fans of the source material a little happier.
For me the film failed every time it got too far from the source material. It was also missing two key characters- that of Rosemary Almond and Helen Hayer. There was a couple of times that the new envisioning worked- Stephen Fry's brilliant Gordon Dietrich and V in a kitchen apron for instance. But a lot of time it didn't (Dascombe surviving in the TV tower). It also failed in representing NorseFire as a totalitarian fascist dictatorship. And where did the slagging of America come from? That wasn't in the book.
The film is not entirely bad- When it hits the source material (Bishop Lillimans take-down, Surrage's execution, Valerie) it is powerful and evocative; Valerie for me was especially hard hitting and I am not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears during the sequence- And even Storm Saxon got a nod. But at the end of the day I think the Wakoffsky brothers missed the mark. I will even go as far as say that I don't think they understood the source or didn't have the balls to bring the real thing to screen.
I do agree that Alan Moore was right to remove his name from this movie- Hopefully sometime in the future proper justice will be done to this story. England Prevails.
Andrew "I know every inch of this cell and it knows every inch of me. Except one"