Review of V for Vendetta (2006) by Mattb. — 25 Mar 2006

This film is pedantic and takes itself way too seriously and the effect was to make it unintentionally humorous. The writers thought the audience would be too stupid to see the self-inherent evils of a fascist regime, so they needed to manipulate us by portraying them as ugly, shifty-eyed rapists.

It would have been more thought provoking and real had they been portrayed as charasmatic or, better yet, like your co-worker or next door neighbor, the average Joe. What a cliche that the antagonists were motivated, really, by power and not their ideology.

True Belivers are always the most freightening. The writing was hackneyed and overly Verbose in an apparent attempt to give the film some sort of legitimacy through seeming literary. Thick melodrama made it impossible to empathize with the characters or care what happened to them.

Five minutes into the film I had a vision of the writers hunched over the 'V' section of Webster's frantically trying to shoehorn every word into a coherent sentence. What exactly is the film's message supposed to be? Buildings can be blown up without killing innocents but instead be capped with an uplifting fireworks finale? Replacing the devastation caused by blowing up a building with a tame 4th of July display is a bone chilling piece of apologist propaganda.

Anyone who thinks this film blurs the line between terrorists and 'freedom fighters' is a few cards short of a full deck. The fact that the writers needed to portray England as some sort of cartoonish neo-Nazi dictatorship to gride their political ax proves the lameness of their position.

However, Natalie Portman does a nice job despite the poor script. Stephen Rea was the highlight of the film.