B*llocks!

Rating: 1/10 (2 April 2006)

Before I write my review, there's three things people reading it should know:
1. I consider myself to be a liberal 2. I haven't read the graphic novel 3. I hated this film.
I'm also British (Scottish, specifically  get to that later) so I found a lot of little things about the film annoying  the accents, "b*llocks!", some pronunciations, and the fact that even as a totalitarian state Britain still comes across as really twee and naff. Our 'heroes' quote Shakespeare and almost everyone speaks with an upper-middle class accent (except a few of the 'baddies', who have accents associated with the working classes  odd considering the premise of the film and the fact that, as far as I know, the original book was based on Thatcherism). The terms English and British also appear to be interchangeable, which annoyed me and will certainly have annoyed lots of other Scots/Irish/Welsh people.
I hated the mask. It was awful and I found it quite distracting. I get that he was supposed to be theatrical etc but the dramatic dialogue and appearance just laboured the point. In fact everything about the movie was laboured, and I think that was the problem  the politics especially. It was overly simplistic, and if it's possible to rip off historical events then that's exactly what this film did to Nazi Germany. The position of Prime Minister had even been replaced with High Chancellor and the party's logo might as well have been a swastika, the colours were the same and everything.
Guy Fawkes, as far as I can tell, was most certainly not a selfless freedom fighter as he's portrayed in the film. The Wachowski brothers should have done some research. He objected to having a Catholic (James I) as king and wanted "to blow the Scottish beggars back to their native mountains!" apparently.
Oh, and the priest in the film is naturally a paedophile. I could go on and on but I won't. It's been a while since I've seen it, and somehow I doubt I'll be seeing it again.
Pants!