V for Vendetta Movie Review

[written in March 2006, before viewing]

Alan Moore is a difficult author for me to read usually, as his work is bitter, cynical, and dark — none of the things I look for in my fiction choices. I was barely able to get through reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I worry that V for Vendetta is going to be too faithful to Moore and darker than I’m interested in. All this talk I’m hearing of Natalie Portman being tortured in the movie doesn’t help (although being made to find a little kid attractive in Phantom Menace could have been torture too…).

[written in March 2007 after viewing]

With Tyler [my son] away on holiday to Michigan for the weekend, I’ve been left with lots of time to write and watch movies.V for Vendetta was a great movie, better than the original Matrix, and possibly one of the better comic book adaptations. It was certainly the best adaptation to film Alan Moore is likely to see in his lifetime, and his refusal to advocate it speaks volumes of his ego. Indeed, the movie actually succeeds in improving upon the graphic novel, particularly in terms of Evie.

I cannot give the movie an A+ though, downgrading it to an A for the Wachowskis’ love of violence. Not only is the bloody ending a gratuitous nod to Matrix fans, but I oppose the way they depict violence in all their movies. In the “making of” feature, someone said the Wachowskis leave the viewer to interpret the movie for themselves, which is undoubtedly true, but they fail to present multiple viewpoints for the viewer to choose from. If no sympathetic character in the movie says, “What that V is doing is terrible” or “he acts both like a hero and a villain, but can the latter justify the former?”, then 80% of the viewing audience is going to be too lazy to process the movie and insert that viewpoint for themselves. Lazy watchers will come away from the film simply with the notion that V was cool because he killed people in slow motion.