V for Vendetta

[Parallax]

Very few movies that are made in Hollywood these days manage to excite me. 2005 was the last year that was pretty good for movies that I can remember in a very long time...I went to the theater at least four times in 2005 and did not come out wondering why I had bothered spending $8 on a movie ticket. I'm glad to see that this trend of good movies has continued with what is actually a pretty good comic book adaptation, V for Vendetta.

Anyway, I could pat myself on the back for seeing it, and extoll its virtues all day, but if nobody else has seen it, and nobody else is interested, I suppose there's not much point in that. That having been said, has anybody else seen it, and if so, what did you think?

My own review is somewhat glowing. Although it does, of course, cut certain elements from the comic book as all adaptations do, the overall feel of the movie is a fairly close approximation. The Wachowski Brothers, whom I have only a very small amount of respect for, have proven themselves to me. I was unsurprised by the strong performance from Hugo Weaving, but was relatively astonished by what I felt was a reasonably strong performance from Natalie Portman as well. I've heard this debated somewhat - but unlike her performance in Star Wars and the like, I actually liked her in V for Vendetta.

The storyline of the movie is a fascinating look into the horrors of a modern police state, and built on the very real human emotions of fear and anger. As the title implies, the story is heavily dedicated to the idea of revenge. It's also a statement on the power of fear, used by both sides of what essentially is a conflict of a government against its people. As the title character, V, says at one point: "People should not fear their governments, it is governments who should fear their people." Forgive me if I've misquoted.

Anyway...having seen the film twice myself, I was astonished to find no topic on it, so I thought I might start one. Everybody else...feel free to chime in?
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He's a victim - not a perp - and I'm choosing to let him go.

[Mafioso]

I gotta admit this was a EXCELLENT movie....the acting was fantastic and it kept me in suspense the entire movie. I wasn't interested in seeing it at first since the whole masked hero thing seemed lame to me.....but I am glad I saw it. There is so many twisters in this movie, its hard not to pay attention since you get trapped after the first 5 minutes.

I do recommend this movie to everyone to go and see, if not wait for it on DVD and go rent it. It is a MUST to go and see this film, very rarely movies like this are made. The main focus of the movie will shock you, I won't spoil it but it is interesting and has things that haven't been executed in other films.

Whatcha waiting for....go and watch it then come back here and post your thoughts! :P

[Kikito]

I completely agree with both of you on this movie. It's actually one of the best films I've seen ina real long while. It completely grabs you with it's story and the character of V. The themes explored are indeeed very unique to this film, which was something that surprised me bit. The way it was marketed, it just seemed like it was gonna be just another action flick, but as soon as the first few minutes of the movie passed I was completely convinced otherwise. I was also surprised with the fact that the Wachowski Brothers directed the movie. It was really different from something I would have expected from them(I've only seen The Matrix movies by them). Well, I definitely recommend this movie to anyone out there who wants to see something different out there.

[Shrew]

The Wachowskis wrote the screenplay to the film, they didn't direct it. It was directed by Jim McTeigue (sp?), who was the assistant director on all three Matrix movies, so he's obviously very similar.

Anyway, I felt V was overall pretty good. It's not a great film, and my biggest problem would be the script. While it's head over heels better than the last two Matrix movies, there's still a bad tendency for characters to talk way too much and sometimes spiel out a bunch of nonsense. Prime example: the reveal-all scene with the Inspector. Nearly everything covered was already pretty clear. That, and so much narration, which is probably a hangover from the graphic novel, but still... so much...
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Fear our Vagueness.

[RedCydranth]

I saw the movie the day it came out and I was very pleased with it. And forever and ever I shall remember the fifth of November.

And of course the greatest introdution in all of cinematic history:

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

Brilliant. I loved the movie and the plot. As Shrew said, it does get a bit verbose when the obvious is apparent, however the graphic novel did the same (Yes I read it, it is sitting in my bookshelf as I speak) and I think the portrayal of Evey was done very well by Natalie Portman and I thought she was a great fit when I heard she was cast (perhaps a BIT too young but she a very flexible actress). And Hugo Weaving was a glove for V. Whomever did casting needs a pat on the back because without the voice that Hugo brings or the skills of emotion that Natalie can expel, the film wouldn't have made its emotional hit. More than a stroy of terrorism it was a story of life, love and understanding what makes humanity so great.

I could analyze how V and Evey are our inner selves and that the fight they fought was our daily lives, but if you really want to get into that, find a decent comic book forum and you'll find plenty of that. As a movie V for Vendetta was brilliantly done and probably the best book to movie adaptation I have seen to date. Wonderful.
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I'm sorry and I apologize are the same thing.
Except at a funeral.

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[Lufia]

I feel horrible since, when I first saw/heard about this movie, I didn't think much of it. I figured, more mindless fighting, cliche story and just more senseless violence. But... I saw it and loved it as well. There are only a few mildly unnessecary scenes, and things just unfold pretty well. The introduction (as posted above) had me grinning. Partly grinning 'cause I had NO idea what was being said, and partly grinning 'cause I never knew that many v words could be used in a (somewhat) coherent sentence. The paradox in asking a masked man who he is? That was great.

It's the best movie I've seen in a while, and while I don't know what that says for it considering the movies out lately, I still liked it heaps. I can see this movie featuring in my English class's Issues work, though I know it won't happen. I wouldn't mind doing an analysis piece on this for my exam. Ehe.

Hugo Weaving did an awesome job. Then again, I may be biased. ;3 Go Aussie~

[Lord Vader]

I haven't seen V for Vendetta, but I am happy it is getting good reviews. I can't wait until I get the chance to see it. It looked really cool.
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General of the Godwin Army
United States Navy ATF-HT

[Parallax]

Man, I totally didn't realize that anyone had ever seen or replied to my woeful little thread about V for Vendetta. I'm glad to read that I'm not the only one who saw and enjoyed the film though. I was pleasantly surprised to find an offering from the Wachowski Brothers that I actually enjoyed, which makes them 1-4, I believe.

[Boogeyman]

The most impressive part of the movie for me was again Hugo Weaving. But even beyond that I feel that it was a masterful job as it was able to invoke all these emotions without us ever having seen his face. You got a real feel for the character without ever knowing anything about him. It would have been so easy for V to be forgettable but instead he is one of the most powerful characters in recent cinema history.

I don't know how many of you read the graphic novel but it was a faithful adaptation. Obviously you can't do everything so certain liberties had to be taken but I think I actually liked the film's way better. In the book V had a whole lot of political manipulation in addition to his terrorism and basically made the government collapse upon itself. (Spoiler)






here was no million V march at the end of it. In the movie it was made out so that the people were the ones that brought about the change. V simply brought the change to the people and helped them along. That is a much better message in my opinion and an extremely pertinent one to the times.
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We're so bad and mean
We make nightmares out of dreams
We're the Spaceballs!

[Parallax]

It's a bit hard for me to compare the film to the graphic novel which spawned it, because I've never gotten the chance to read the graphic novel myself. However, the differences between the two have been explained to me in some detail. It's almost always necessary to make large cuts when making the transition from any print format to the big screen, due to restrictions on time and budget. For even a graphic novel, the budget necessary to produce illustrations and dialogue doesn't stack up against actors and special effects. Also, a graphic novel can be as long as it needs to be, as can a book...

Making cuts is understandable, and unlike in some other notable cases when I've been very disappointed in how things have been adapted, from what I've heard, V for Vendetta is reasonably good. More importantly, I guess, from a cinematic perspective it's quite an impressive film. I agree completely with Boogeyman5870 in that the performance of Hugo Weaving was the film's defining attribute. As everyone seems to be agreed on, he was more or less a perfect fit for the role.

I was mostly fascinated by the story however. The acting talent and the screenplay are, of course, what really makes the premise of the film come alive, but the premise itself is really quite interesting. I've always been fascinated by the idea of 'negative utopias', police states like the one demonstrated in the film. I'm a fan of fiction along that vein, books like 1984 and Brave New World. It's always interesting to see perspectives on what an ideal world gone completely wrong is like.
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He's a victim - not a perp - and I'm choosing to let him go.

[Boogeyman]

Something else Parallax and I have discussed at length is the information control in the film. It's obvious that the government was lying about almost everything, even the fact people would die if they left the quarantine zone.

The stuff about the war has to pretty much be true since that was before the facists came into power. Still there is really no way to tell what was true out of what they presented. The American ship sent to England? Could have been made up, in fact America could have been just fine and watching from the outside.
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We're so bad and mean
We make nightmares out of dreams
We're the Spaceballs!

[Parallax]

Yeah, that was my concept...mostly inspired by reading The Handmaiden's Tale which was another 'negative utopia' book rather like the aforementioned titles. In that novel, the United States becomes a fundamentalist Christian nation while the rest of the world watches. People who wish to escape from the oppressive regime attempt to escape into Canada, who are sympathetic to the people's plight, but unwilling or unable to risk a confrontation with the powerful theocracy which has emerged to their southern border.

Obviously if the United Kingdom turned into a police state, it would stand to reason that they became even more militarily powerful...and since they were already formidable, that would likely indicate that nobody would be super keen on attacking them. Also, since the prologue indicated to the United States' continuing war with the Middle East was growing worse rather than better, it likely dragged other nations down into a spiral which they were not recovered enough from to interfere in the emerging fascist government in the United Kingdom.

I find the subject of propaganda and information control to be highly fascinating though, and it seems to me that any police state like that one would have to control the spread of free information. Saying that the United States is "the world's biggest leper colony" will turn people away from wanting to ever leave the United Kingdom. That would slow down the resistance to the police state's control, since if people think that there is no better alternative, then there is no way that enough of them will band together and rise up to topple the currently presiding regime.
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He's a victim - not a perp - and I'm choosing to let him go.

[Elzamine]

I was overall really impressed with the film actually!

I hadn't read the comic, and still haven't actually, even though I mean to.. but when I saw the film I knew it was based of a comic book.

I didn't really know anything about the plot though, it just looked like some english based Zorro acttually. So, needless to say, I wasn't exactly expecting much from it. It ended up blowing me away though. I've heard this movie and it's acting argued both ways quite a few times. I think both lead roles were captured very well actually. I really found both V and Eve believeable ^^

It's late so I'm sort of braindead right now, but really, I recommend the movie to everyone! If you've been putting off seeing it, stop! Just go and see it already, it's awesome ^^
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-My DeviantArt-

[Sparhawk]

I just now bough this movie....WOW!!! I loved it. The effects were decent, and the plot was pretty engaging. I was glued to the screen....I also loved the depth of the charracters and the political side the movie seemed to touched upon. I will definately watch this one over and over...
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[Tullaryx]

I have this film as one of my top 10 films of the year. Finally, an honest adaptation of Alan Moore's work. Even though it wasn't slavishly accurate to the original graphic novel, it did keep enough of the spirit and themes of the novel to make this Moore fan happy. I'd have put it higher on my list if it wasn't for another dystopian-theme film that came out jus recently taking the concept V for Vendetta took and ran with and actually pulling it off better: Children of Men.
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