It's Official

Rating: 1/10 (25 September 2006)

If the Matrix movies made you suspect the Wachowskis are political morons, this movie makes it official: they are political morons.
Their ultimate symbol for popular resistance to oppression is blowing up the English parliament buildings while one of the most sympathetic characters in the movie, the naive homosexual Gordon Deitrich (played by Stephen Frye), is killed for harboring a 14th century Koran in his home.
"Are you Muslim?" asks Evey (Natalie Portman).
"No, I'm in television." Yuk, yuk, yuk.
Deitrich keeps a Koran because he is moved by its poetry. This is quite like singing "Deutschland Uber Alles" because you like Haydn's tune. (I wonder just how poetic a real homosexual finds the Koran's attitude towards homosexuality.)
So, the world is filled with fascism and oppression, most of it not in the West, and the Wachowskis' brilliant idea is to blow up the very prototype of parliamentary democracy, that one thing that virtually defines freedom. File this movie under "C" for Cowardice, right beside the movie of "Sum Of All Fears", whose real terrorists are magically converted into fake terrorists.
Yes, yes, I know the movie is based on a comic book (you can hardly miss that message), but the Wachowskis had a choice to make. By their choices do we know them.
But for the fact that nearly every word, every move, is predictable from start to finish, the movie itself is technically good. Even Portman manages to emote, just a little, although you never really believe she is ever in serious trouble.