V for Vendetta offers solid entertainment, but it's not the comic book

Rating: 7/10 (21 March 2006)

This is a very entertaining film. Set in a post-apocalyptic fascist Britain, V for Vendetta offers solid entertainment only undermined by a moralistic didacticism that fails in a number of ways.
It is impossible to mention this movie without mentioning the seminal comic book, written by the infamous Alan Moore, and illustrated by David Lloyd. I, like countless other comic fans, am in complete awe of Alan Moore's career. After numerous attempts to make his comics into films, with varying degrees of failure, V for Vendetta has been lauded by the comic community as finally doing the original justice.
The movie does get a lot right. The pacing, with it's rhythmic procession of action, horrific subtext, set-up, and action is great. The cinematography, with matrix flourishes, and nods to the original illustrations; editing that remains by and large seamless, and the scale, are all quite satisfying. Where the movie fails is when it comes to any semblance of a message. Where the comic book is an erudite knee-jerk reaction to the Reagan/Thatcher administration, the film has been modernized only by a few not-so-subtle jabs at the Bush administration that really de-contextualize the story.
I shouldn't gripe about what the movie missed from the comic, but it's important in order to differentiate between the brilliant, but flawed comic, and the blockbuster film. An effectively written psychedelic voyage that Finch undertakes to discover V, all the political sub-plots that humanized and offered sympathetic understanding to the villainous politicians, and the narrative juxtaposition of technology and justice being impartial to misuse, are but some of the golden gems cut from the movie in order for it to work on the screen. Unfortunately, the story still has too much ground to cover, and most of the movie comes out of someone's mouth, while the visuals struggle to catch up.
The acting is an unfortunate casualty of poor translation from the comic book. Portman was a poor choice for Evey. The talented ensemble of British actors who make up the villains really have no material to work with, and subsequently have no character arcs, and are a constant irritating villainous 'other' throughout the film. Hugo Weaving does actually do V justice, despite the comic book character's characterization being in part based on the fact you could only imagine his voice.
I readily admit this film is marred for me because of my engagement with the comic book. There are many good points to the film, despite my disparaging comments, and it is way above par for both a directorial debut, and for a blockbuster. I was constantly disappointed with scenes, not for what they were, but for what they weren't, lacking the clever reflexivity and mind blowing insight of the comic. Numerous scenes in the movie tried very hard to convey the extreme conditions which characters (and the audience) are supposed to intellectually evolve through, and they don't work. In the end, while the spirit of V and Evey are kept intact, the rest of the cast are painted with very large caricature brush-strokes which really undermine the subtleties of any political message that the director must have been drawn to. The end product has too much of an aftertaste of a more accessible, better made 'Ultraviolet' for my liking.