On the eve

Rating: 4/10 (20 January 2017)

I watched this movie on the eve of the inauguration of the 45th President of the USA. It wasn't hard to connect the content of the movie, based on Alan Moore's dystopian series of graphic novels, with fears for the future. I guess that's a sign of the filmmakers' seriousness of intent.
Sure enough, V FOR VENDETTA gets off to a great start, full of action and mystery. As the story progresses, however, the excitement peters out, as it does in the Wachowskis' THE MATRIX trilogy, bogged down in heavy-handed portentousness.
Natalie Portman works hard and effectively in the leading role of Evey Hammond, with Hugo Weaving doing his best to make a credible human being out of the eponymous man in a Guy Fawkes mask. A who's who of character actors, led by the perpetually pained Stephen Rae, toil away earnestly in support.
The film's fatal flaw is that it assumes the majority of people are liberal at heart, and will rise up to oppose right-wing oppression. We just have to take a look at what's happening as I write this. In both the USA and Europe, democracies are turning their backs on liberal values. The demagogues are winning. The moral is, don't rely on the movies for up-to-date political analysis.