V For Vendetta Revisited

This week instead of a review I thought I would take some time to respond to Kyle Gould, another reviewer on this site. In his review of V for Vendetta last week Kyle mentioned something I said in my review of the movie. While this column is supposed to be reserved for critiques of movies I thought that I should at least expand on my comments a bit lest people read what he said and decide I am some sort of ignoramus.

I'll start by saying I was shocked to see his comments because really I didn't know if anybody read my reviews except for my friends and family. So it was cool for me to see that someone found something I said to be interesting even if he didn't agree with it. For those who haven't a clue what I am talking about I reprinted the portion his column talkig about my review.

He writes "If we're going to be truthful here this movie was only made because the Wachowski brothers hit a monster home run with the Matrix series of movies. If an unknown writer had pitched this movie to a studio it would have ended up in the straight to DVD pile at best." To which I question whether or not he understood the workings behind this movie and the other commercially successful (if not always intellectually stimulating) works by Alan Moore already realized in film. Hellboy, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Constantine are all big blockbuster Hollywood films. Why would this production get held up because the Wachowski brother's weren't behind it?

Do I understand the workings behind this movie and others like it? Sure I do. Hollywood jumps on bandwagons better than most industries and I realize that comic book adaptations are hot properties right now. But my comment wasn't simply that I was shocked by the fact that a movie was made from the comic book series. My comment was that this particular movie could only have been made because the Wachowski brothers were behind it.

The movie isn't an action hero, comic book film. It's a slow paced, pseudo intellectual, second rate political drama with a hero who wears a clown like mask through the whole movie and a Cher wig. Instead of incredible stunts and exhilarating spectacle we're treated to 2 hours of mildly interesting but in the end underdeveloped political commentary. Its like offering a thriller with no thrills or a mystery with nothing to solve.

However it also doesn't work as a cautionary political tale. There are no new ideas or perspectives. If you want to see a really good film about a dystopian future go see Gattaca. That movie presented us with a fully realized future that was both scary and offered us characters we could care about.

Which brings me to my next point; the movie also does not work as a love story. I found the weird relationship between Evey and V to be uninteresting and forced so on that front it also fails.

Having used more words than necessary the reason I made the comments I made was because this movie didn't work. It was a mish mash of ideas that never delivered on any fronts. A dull script based on a graphic novel that replaces action with boring dialogue and political babble would not have been made into a movie without the Wachowski brothers behind it and I stand by that belief.

Anyway that's my last word on the topic. If this keeps up maybe Kyle and I will become the Ebert and Roeper of Calgary, except poorer and with fewer fans.
© 2005 Review by Son Tran