T for Tired, Tedious, and Tripe

Rating: 3/10 (22 March 2006)

Where to start? Hitler as villain, that's been done. Totalitarianism bad - gee, that's been done, done, and done. A comic book hero, who can't be killed, yeah, been done too. Gee, let's see, how about knives versus guns, and guess who wins? So you've read Hugh Weaving is wearing this mask. Yeah, that's not so bad. Natalie Portman, she's passable. Stephen Rea, as the policeman assigned to the case, is the real star of the movie. He seems to be about the only decent actor really acting in the film, actually trying to get to the bottom of the case. But it's the plot, which is so tedious, tired, been done, and done and done. I just went back to see the trailer, on-line - why was I thinking this would be a great movie? Because the trailer is good. Hell, the trailer is great.
But I found myself sitting in the theater, looking at the walls, looking down the row I was in. Just plain bored. News flash to Alan Moore and the Wachowskis - a Sinead O'Connor haircut, a sack cloth, gruel to eat, and deprivation do not equal torture. You'll sit there and say, wait, they're not doing anything to Natalie Portman, so what's going on. OH, wait, it turns out that V has captured her, and done all this, to break her spirit, to set her free? COME ON.
Comics are OK. But don't we think that the guys, er nerds, that write these never got laid; instead they cooked up these wild fantasies about super heroes and women that needed to be saved, in lieu of actually having a life, and getting to know girls. Guess that's true for film makers too.
There's no real message here, though there pretends to be one. Not one that you can use. How can you make an anti-establishment movie, that is nothing but establishment. Let's face it. This is a twenty-five year old rant against Margaret Thatcher  but here in the US, we've selected Bush, so what's the Big Deal. Life goes on. We can still make and distribute shitty movies about Hitler-Thatcher-Bush, and the planet still spins on its axis.
I guess I do struggle with the comics in general, and their movie adaptations. I hated Sin City at first, because it was so cartoonish, and over the top. But it was visually stunning, well crafted, and on a second viewing I really liked. So, to further appreciate V, I read the Graphic Novel. It's not that great. It's a comic, with all that that entails. Cartoonish characters and story. I say, with some conviction, that the novel is no better than the movie.
Sure go see it. If you aren't looking for depth, if you don't care about seeing more conventional story arcs, if cartoon bullies in a cartoon movie sound like fun, then strap-on your own mask, and see V. I salvaged this movie week, by watching "Brazil" (1985), by Terry Gilliam. Now there's a movie that sings - that marries the horror of a totalitarian state, with reality, with fantasy, with a love story - and it WORKS.
3 out of 10