Strong Statement, if not Execution

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2006)

I saw a preview of V for Vendetta at WonderCon 2006 in San Francisco, CA. When I found out there would be a screening at the Metreon - I was excited! See - for me V for Vendetta, the comicbook, is as important (if not more so) as Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Each of those works deconstructed a society in desperate need of change or a savior. But where Watchmen and DKR gave more definitive and heroic resolutions, V for Vendetta allowed itself to end on a bleak and very downbeat note. It is a brilliant and subtle piece of work commenting on how anarchy and violence might be needed to bring about change.
I give the movie credit for trying.
It delves into the harshness of its iron-fisted government and the lies it is built on. It gives us Evey Hammond as someone we can relate to as she deals with the madness that is the masked and mysterious V. It gives us an authority figure in Finch, who uncovers the plot that lead to the fascist government's ascension.
And it gives us V - a terrorist. Bad word for anyone in this day and age, but is someone who terrorized an unjust society a bad person? Would we feel bad if someone terrorized the Nazis or Al-Qaeda? We see V's back story - would we be justified in horrific acts of death and destruction if we were treated so terribly? Its the mid-point of the movie which contains its greatest and quietest moments - where Evey Hammond frees herself of fear. Fans of the comicbook will be thrilled to see this sequence is nearly identical to the text.
Its the ending where the movie falters. It doesn't give any sense of just how things might change. Also, I wish more was made of how the people of England was changing in its attitude towards their government.
Perhaps I'm being overly harsh due to my love for the book.
But this movie is still worth watching - especially in today's political climate. It may spark some debate and get you to think about the people that govern us - and tell us what to do.