Mask your Giggles, then Fight for the Future

Rating: 7/10 (23 March 2006)

Taking a contrarian with you to a movie, especially one much anticipated, leads to daunting results, as the type invariably points out aspects you'd sooner ignore, no matter how much sense they make.
Look at V For Vendetta. Eagerly awaited, politically-charged, top-of-the-line dystopia and what not. However, the person this writer watched it with, less than ten minutes into the thing, proclaimed enthusiastically: "It's a freakin' superhero-comic flick!" That much, of course, was true, and never again will yours be able to think of V in the same ecstatic manner. Thanks a lot.
But deny it you can't, for V does suffer from the inconsistencies and childish, illogical attributes so commonly found in hero fiction. These do erode the street cred believability of story, context and characters, although not to the extent of ruining the assemblage as an experience. For pluses it brings to the table a more mature style than the Matrix trilogy boasted, thankfully incorporating anecdotes of real adult language and gore as befits an R rated product. Additionally, V's rather ultra-leftist demagogy succeeds in appearing relevant to our time and age, indicative of the film adaptation's relevance.
Instead of a fascist Britain rising from the ashes of nuclear devastation as seen in the original graphic novel, there's one tracing its origins to the war on terror and incipient paranoia. Nice touch, albeit one that'll probably annoy Fox News devotees prodigiously. Likewise, some of the characters have been altered, like party leader Adam Sutler (Adolf Hitler? Geddit?), as done by John Hurt. Overall, the setup of this oppressive United Kingdom isn't bad, but execution leaves us wanting. You just don't really get the impression that it's all that totalitarian, and ultimately fail to take these goose-steppers seriously.
At least the usual hordes of masked, armored terror troops make merely a token appearance versus dominating the film's visuals. Those belong firmly in our present reality, with London looking just like it does today. None of that by-now formulaic Blade Runner-esquire running down of places anywhere in sight.
Operating in this realm are our protagonists, headed by V (an unseen Hugo Weaving), a somewhat disturbing superhero created inadvertently by the dictatorial regime and endowed with advanced combat and survival skills. V constantly makes references to rebellious Guy Fawkes, and as you may know dons the appropriate attire, mask included. This champion seeks to dethrone Sutler's administration by way of mischievous yet lethal acts of demolition and terror. Helping him along is Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman), who in this rendition works for government-controlled media outlet BTN (British Television Network) instead of on the streets as a prostitute.
V and Evey form a close if turbulent relationship, with the hero slowly unveiling the truth for his young companion's benefit. There's some attempt by the Wachowskis to engage in existential discourse a la Matrix, but it's nominal at best and has to do more with V's microcosm rather any larger picture. There we encounter more banal conspiracy theories having to do with how the world order as depicted came to pass. Stephen Rhea (The Crying Game) works wonderfully for the movie as police inspector Finch, determined to figure out who V is while harboring doubts as to the legitimacy of his own employers. Finch's character is by far the best, not as pompous as V or bewildered like Portman's Evey. Sadly, the police tracking V leads to a certain dreariness in the film, filling too large a chunk of proceedings. Generally, V will disappoint action purists and has little of the appeal of its Matrix predecessors. Some pyrotechnics find their way herein, and a smidgeon of knife antics also, but martial arts and gunplay aficionados needn't apply. If you can gloss over these genre shortcomings, then V's a pretty decent comment on geopolitics of the early 21st century, openly calling the US and its coalition fascistic and hateful.
There are also a few quips that'll disturb those affected or touched by the events of September 11, which is a good thing since extolling the virtue of freedom isn't only pivotal to V's plot, it's also the movie's most memorable facet. That last one certainly can't be said of suspending disbelief, as V readily gets away with stunts that in a society of any modern controllability would land him in prison or worse. Sure, it's possible to mix technological and economic openness with political backwardness, yet even the most post-modern of theoreticians will tell you FedEx-ing a million Guy Fawkes masks to random people without having the supposedly all-seeing secret police interdict you is quite unlikely.
So, we have a film with lots to say, some of which gets said eloquently. Aside from that, V puts forth a passable narrative spiced with touches of OK'ish action and character construction. But it's no classic, and suffers from an ending way too Hollywood and comic book-easy for its own good. In summation, V For Vendetta's good enough to watch and ingest, but certainly not the watershed comeback some have expected. It was also the last project cinematographer Adrian Biddle (Aliens) worked on before passing away, and pay our respects we must. The fight for new, groundbreaking sci-fi rages on.
Rating: * * *