V For Vendetta
I blame The Crow . Ever since Brandon Lee's incarnation of that comic-book character left his calling card on the scene one of his revenge-killings - a giant petrol-outlined illustration that ignited to an impressively fiery crow - other comic-book adaptations have scrambled to top the feat. We've seen Daredevil leave his rendition, somewhat less impressively (his, um, initials) on a bar-room floor, and then, just when this trend threatened to come to an end before it really began, The Punisher left the most contrived calling-card of all: blowing up specific cars in a parking lot that in the end would create his skull-symbol – pretty involved really, especially seeing only those flying in a helicopter at that exact time overhead would have got to appreciate his artistic skills and attention to detail.
Now, V for Vendetta comes along and has wisely realised that all this pyrotechnic-blatant-self-promoting is a little tacky. For the amateurs. Leaving a fiery insignia these days is just so…passé. I mean, when does a super-hero (or in this case ‘anti-hero') get the time between saving the world (or in V's case, kind of destroying it) to think up and execute such time-consuming activities, as cool as they are? That shit might fly in popcorn movies starring Ben Affleck, but in a more serious flick like Vendetta , which aims to preach as well as entertain, there's just no room for show-off tactics like that.
So instead would-be revolutionary V, when not plotting the downfall of the hypocritical evil bureaucrats ruling futuristic London, apparently likes to spend his free time making a giant-ass…wait for it…domino display, which when knocked down, oh-so cleverly reveals…drum-roll please…a giant V. Yeah.
In fairness to the filmmakers here, this obviously wasn't just something they've chucked in because ‘it looked cool'. No, no, no, you see this takes place at a specific time in the film, and is inter-cut with images of V's rebellion having an effect on the repressed people of London , almost like some sort of, um, roll-on effect. See what they did there?
V for Vendetta is a frustrating and even annoying film. Think it's an action film? You've been horribly misled by the previews. There's three short action-y pieces and they're all pretty uninspired, especially since this is being hyped as something from the Matrix stable of films. And that's the problem right there. Everything you thought sucked about the last two Matrix movies is rolled into one here. Talk, talk, talk, half-baked philosophy, overt sub-text about the state of the world today, bloated pompousness, moments bizarrely tinged with S&M, over-the-top peripheral characters. All it's missing is a hilariously unsexy underground rave scene.
What the film has to say is summed up by V's key quote; “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” There's some more nice lines sprinkled throughout about the power of ideas, and lots of one-man-making-a-difference ideology in there too, but everything else veers into fairly predictable U.S.A-hating (in the near future the U.S. has apparently got their comeuppance and all but wiped themselves off the planet.) and thus into morally questionable territory - where terrorists are to be cheered for their revolutionary ideals despite of the violence they employ to carry such ideals out. It's that old ‘One man's terrorist…' deal, which then makes it a bit soft cock that when V blows a lot of stuff up we never hear of any innocent civilians suffering – instead we just witness the righteous slaying of the guilty and evil government tyrants again and again. He really is a family-friendly terrorist!
While I like the basic idea behind Vendetta , and appreciate the daringness behind making a film with essentially a terrorist as its hero in such a sensitive time, great chunks of the story are badly convoluted, and the parallel story of the cops on the hunt for V spawns the most tedious moments of the film. I will never understand the point of including these types of plot-threads. Why watch two detectives fumble around trying to uncover V's plan when we, the audience, already know it? I imagine these scenes were only really included to update the audience on the passing of time (“It's been four months and we still haven't found him!!!”) because otherwise they serve zero purpose and just bloat the film dramatically.
V himself is a pretty cool character, although for the first twenty minutes I wondered what monumental mess was about to unfold as V's pompous character bounces on from stage-left like a cartoon, speaking almost exclusively in V words. The creepy guy does grow on you though, and Hugo Weaving does well to emote through the mask. John Hurt, in some nice stunt casting, plays the Supreme Chancellor, Britain 's Big Brother, whose back-story pretty much reads exactly like the Emperor in the Star Wars prequels: A man who has created a culture of fear, seems to offer safety from the very fear he created, rises to power on public backing before ruling with an iron fist. Natalie Portman is…well…okay. She looks sexy bald, which is a remarkable enough feat I suppose. Her relationship with V is the only thing that really compelled me to keep watching Vendetta , although even that is handled mawkishly at times.
It's telling that the most interesting part of the film, when Portman's character gets kidnapped and tortured for months for information on V but won't turn traitor, feels like a different film, but as soon as she is freed any gaining momentum is stopped dead, as the film seems content to tread water until it's floundering ending, where V is instantaneously made into a beloved martyr with seemingly all of Britain disobeying their government-imposed curfew and joining as one to witness the final act in V's revolution, all of them dressed exactly like him. Pretty cool considering Che Guevara had to wait years to become a retro-cool revolutionary icon. His big revolution had something to do with the t-shirt industry, yeah? What a guy.