Now, before I write this review, I have an announcement. On Friday, January 5th to be exact for those who read this another day, I went to my first class of "Introduction to Film" at my college. Now, this would really be insignificant, had my professor not said that we would be required to write a weekly review and record it in our college blog. Now, this blog is separate from this one, but I felt that since I already write reviews on this blog, I see no reason not to give more reviews instead of less. Now, this will not hinder my normal schedule, in fact many of my existing reviews may in turn be used on the other blog BUT because my class is on Film and not Animation, I will be reviewing movies now and then that do not fit in my existing parameters. Please note that when this happens, these reviews will not count for my regular weekly reviews, but will rather fit as a secondary review, which I will post Saturday nights, as opposed to the regular ones I post Sunday nights.
Now, with that out of the way, V for Vendetta.
This movie is definitely one worth watching, one way or another. I have always enjoyed an Adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novels, sometimes more than his original works (which I will get to more in my review of Extraordinary Gentlemen). The movie was intended to be a debate between Fascism and Anarchism, the two greatest political extremes, though according to Moore himself, the movie has more or less become a lukewarm debate over liberalism and Neo-Conservatism.
I don't know about Moore, but when I think Liberalism I think Biological experimentation and Political Parodies of Fascist dictators. All jokes aside, I really feel Moore overreacted in his opinion of the film, though as the creator, he has every write to voice his opinion.
The movie is about two people: V and Evey. V is a Political Terrorist who has, in my honest opinion, the greatest opening monologue ever, saying what could be the longest Alliteration ever done seriously (he uses the letter V). Evey is an employee at the major local news network of Great Britain, called BTN.
The story is very Narratively driven and I really don't like it when I end up spoiling parts of the film, but seeing as how successful it was and how it is nine years old now, I feel no fear in doing so. However, I will try to put my spoilers at the end.
V, himself, is not a 100% complex character. It is the mystery, the government, the politics being mentioned that are the biggest that are the story's depths and I feel that the movie does an incredible achievement in bringing those ideals to light. In fact, not only does this film discuss so many interesting things about the dangers of a Fascist government, it has also been praised for its overwhelming support of Gay rights. Neither of the characters are made a caricature of what most film and media use to represent Homosexuals, and this was 2005, nearly a decade ago, which really says something about how controversial this movie must have been when it came out.
V is a political terrorist who wears a Guy Fawkes, which may have inspired the Anonymous group's use of it today. He was a victim of inhumane experimentation set in a concentration camp run by Adam Stanler, who for the entire film, kept sounding like I heard Adam Sandler, making it a bit comical to imagine Adam Sandler as the leader of Fascist England.
V has survived an explosion at the camp only to have his entire body burned to a cinder. He now seeks to overthrow the corrupt government of England and start an anarchistic revolution. He is quite clever in many of his attacks, using misdirection to avoid the cops as he escapes from using the local news to give his manifesto.
The movie is very good, using many different symbols and allegories to provide a compelling, if one-sided, story. One cannot harsh the film too much for painting the villains as very one-dimensional, since almost the entire film was done to tell the mystery of V and the growth of Evey. I hear that Moore had written the original V for Vendetta with much more balance and wrote the government as very complex individuals, but V for Vendetta went and did what it was made to do, and I greatly enjoyed all the turns made in it.
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