One "Purist's" View

Rating: 3/10 (23 March 2006)

There are essentially two kinds of folks who will be seeing this film. Those who have read the original illustrated story and those who haven't. From what I've heard and read, those who haven't read the original story seem to like the film on its own merits. So be it. I cannot comment on that. I have read the original story, many times over.
There are some things to be liked in the film, Hugo Weaving as "V" is a good job casting. Given the change of character, Portman as Evey was good as well - especially the "There's a rat" scenes.
There are however some things to not like about the film. Why did the Wachowski brothers find it necessary to rewrite Evey as a closet dissident sprung from the roots of dissidence. Why did they find it necessary to dilute the Norsefire to "Coronation Street" level menace? The scenes of families depicted did nothing to get across the true viciousness of the Norsefire regime. So diluted was it that the re-writers found it necessary to invent crimes for the audience to dislike the regime. This, sadly, rather dilutes the point of the V character. Add to this that V is written as some kind of insecure brat, unlucky in love because of disfiguration. Perhaps the writers thought they were humanizing the character, but the whole point of V is that he represents, not a person, but an idea or set of ideas.
Then there is the unforgivable. There is a scene in the illustrated story in which V performs some magic tricks for Evey. During this scene, V effectively asks for Evey's permission to liberate her and she gives it - in fact demands it. This scene does not appear in the movie, nor anything like it. Frankly, I think it'd make a better scene than V preparing egg in a blanket. To make up for deleting this important scene, the Wachowski's resort to apologies. V does not apologize. Part of the point of the story is that V is more in-tune with the real desires of the people than even they are themselves. The people are not merely being kept under thumb - they have had their wills controlled.
Why the renaming of Adam Susan to Sutler, and why the depiction of him as a ranting Orwellian face on a big screen? Susan is methodical, ruthless, business-like fascist who rules by terror and propaganda, with far too much reliance on his surveillance methods. Much of the characterization of Susan in the story is intended to illustrate that his hold on society is tenuous at best because it doesn't have any basis in the will of the people. Susan is not a ranting psychopath, he's a dogmatic, systematic fanatic horribly distanced from humanity. Susan and V are foils for each other.
Was there any particular reason why V's speech to the people got so incredibly watered down? The speech was intended to place responsibility for the future, and for what has happened to England, firmly in the hands of the people.
The use of hundreds of Fawkes masks at the end of the film was incredibly trite and ridiculous in the extreme. Just gotta have a trite Hollywood ending, eh? The ending of the illustrated story is not that it has reached an endpoint, but that it has reached a new beginning. Replacing one icon with another is not to the point.
One other minor note. V is not the main character in the story. Evey is. V is simply a catalyst.
Perhaps the Wachowskis should have read the story first. It really is much more interesting than this. In all honestly, I think I can see, at least in part, why Moore took his name off this.
The good news for those who haven't read V for Vendetta and who enjoyed the movie: there's much more and much better of what this movie makes an empty shell.