Socio-political allegory?

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2007)

What a frustrating experience this was.
A pseudo-historical philosophical hotchpotch slowly unfolding into a film with an alarmingly nihilistic resolution, that completely undermines the film's initial outlook. Some images are pleasing to look at, but the film's philosophy is incredibly pretentious, with some gratuitous references to Shakespeare and Goethe's Faust along the way, that have no bearing to the story at all. The main character is V, for which Hugo Weaving provided the voice, who looks like a 21th century reincarnation of The Count of Monte Christo. He is constantly - when not wreaking havoc on other people - proclaiming various philosophical cliché's, supposedly referring to totalitarianism or tyranny. Very annoying and they might as well have used a computer for his voice since his lips aren't moving.
The film is totally deprived of humor or even the slightest wit or irony, as one can expect from the Wachowsky brothers. For me, this overbearing seriousness is killing. Do these guys ever laugh?
V (for Vendetta) has rather dubious and elitist views on how to "liberate" the commoners from tyranny, let alone in his relations with Evey. He even tortures her in a specially built cell to force his viewpoint upon her. I thought our hero was supposed to fight these practices. He's worse than the system he's fighting against. I'd rather live under the reign of chancellor Hurt than under V's, with all his bombast and self-righteous flowery speeches about the world we live in.
Hardly a thoughtful film. Makes you wonder what audience the makers had in mind. As an action flick is disappointing, as drama it's hopeless. The performances don't really matter for the total lack of material to work with here, but even in this department it fails. Nathalie Portman cultivates a strange BBC-broadcasting accent and gives another bad performance. Stephen Rhea does his mumbling police inspector thing again (how often has he played these kind of roles?). He's not bad, but why is a simple police inspector put in charge of stopping a threat that could put the whole world order upside-down? What kind of character is this anyway? Stephen Fry as a TV-presenter is the only one to breath some live into his character.
As a political allegory, it's nothing more than postcard philosophy, completely trivial. Perhaps the Wachowsky brothers should stick to making action flicks like THE MATRIX wherein their wretched views of reality and fiction belong. With this film, they exposed themselves as two little boys with the basic understanding of a twelve-year old. Depressing.
Camera Obscura --- 3/10