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featherynscaleThis has got to be the best bad review of a good film I've seen in a while. Here's Newsweek, on V for Vendetta:
Anarchy in the U.K.
'V for Vendetta' tries talkin' about a revolution.
By Jeff Giles
Newsweek
March 20, 2006 issue - V for Vendetta" will get its share of dismissive reviews—probably more than enough to convince hard-core fans that the movie was simply too smart and dangerous to be given safe passage. In point of fact, though, "Vendetta" is not good. The film may spark interesting debates—about the nature of terrorism and governments, about the inalienable right of artists to shock and provoke—but what we're dealing with is a lackluster comic-book movie that thinks terrorist is a synonym for revolutionary.
It is 2020 and a totalitarian government rules England, its symbol a modified crucifix, its slogan "Strength Through Unity, Unity Through Faith." By day, the loquacious masked man who calls himself V (Hugo Weaving) dwells in an underground lair filled with art he's stolen back from government censors. By night, he cuts the throats of government baddies and plots to blow up Parliament, á la Guy Fawkes, both to foment revolution and to avenge whatever mysterious evil was done to him back before he skulked around like the Phantom of the Opera.
"Vendetta" is based on an '80s-era graphic novel rife with outrage over Margaret Thatcher's England. But, as adapted by the Wachowski brothers and directed by their protégé James McTeigue, the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia. It references "America's war," uses imagery direct from Abu Ghraib and contains dialogue likely to offend anyone who's not, say, a suicide bomber. Buildings are symbols, V tells a haunted young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman), after saving her from some vile, rampaging cops: "Blowing up a building can change the world." The filmmakers have insisted that V is not intended to be a hero. Which is bollocks. The movie grants him absolute moral superiority from beginning to end. Sure, Evey tells him he's a monster—and then tries to make out with his mask. In a movie, when the pretty girl falls in love with you and stays in love with you, you're a hero.
These may seem like airy objections to something principally meant to entertain, so it's only fair to note that "V for Vendetta" fails on that score, too. The movie looks scarily lovely in the comic-book-noir style that's now a given. But the screenplay is full of clichéd caricatures of power-hungry Christians and government-controlled TV anchors, as well as being extremely talky. (The Wachowskis' presence is felt not just in the movie's imagery—in the slow-mo shot of raindrops and in the vapor trails that follow V's ching-chinging knives—but in the endless scenes in which people sit around explaining stuff.) Curiously, "Vendetta" is least rousing at the climax, when the people of London seem poised to join V in an orgy of violence. Never mind what it makes on opening weekend, someone should have thrown himself on this bomb.
* * * * *
We saw it yesterday. It's good. It's one of the better films I've seen lately (although in all fairness, I seldom watch films that don't include monsters, explosions, aliens, or gunfights, so YMMV). You should probably go.
Anarchy in the U.K.
'V for Vendetta' tries talkin' about a revolution.
By Jeff Giles
Newsweek
March 20, 2006 issue - V for Vendetta" will get its share of dismissive reviews—probably more than enough to convince hard-core fans that the movie was simply too smart and dangerous to be given safe passage. In point of fact, though, "Vendetta" is not good. The film may spark interesting debates—about the nature of terrorism and governments, about the inalienable right of artists to shock and provoke—but what we're dealing with is a lackluster comic-book movie that thinks terrorist is a synonym for revolutionary.
It is 2020 and a totalitarian government rules England, its symbol a modified crucifix, its slogan "Strength Through Unity, Unity Through Faith." By day, the loquacious masked man who calls himself V (Hugo Weaving) dwells in an underground lair filled with art he's stolen back from government censors. By night, he cuts the throats of government baddies and plots to blow up Parliament, á la Guy Fawkes, both to foment revolution and to avenge whatever mysterious evil was done to him back before he skulked around like the Phantom of the Opera.
"Vendetta" is based on an '80s-era graphic novel rife with outrage over Margaret Thatcher's England. But, as adapted by the Wachowski brothers and directed by their protégé James McTeigue, the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia. It references "America's war," uses imagery direct from Abu Ghraib and contains dialogue likely to offend anyone who's not, say, a suicide bomber. Buildings are symbols, V tells a haunted young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman), after saving her from some vile, rampaging cops: "Blowing up a building can change the world." The filmmakers have insisted that V is not intended to be a hero. Which is bollocks. The movie grants him absolute moral superiority from beginning to end. Sure, Evey tells him he's a monster—and then tries to make out with his mask. In a movie, when the pretty girl falls in love with you and stays in love with you, you're a hero.
These may seem like airy objections to something principally meant to entertain, so it's only fair to note that "V for Vendetta" fails on that score, too. The movie looks scarily lovely in the comic-book-noir style that's now a given. But the screenplay is full of clichéd caricatures of power-hungry Christians and government-controlled TV anchors, as well as being extremely talky. (The Wachowskis' presence is felt not just in the movie's imagery—in the slow-mo shot of raindrops and in the vapor trails that follow V's ching-chinging knives—but in the endless scenes in which people sit around explaining stuff.) Curiously, "Vendetta" is least rousing at the climax, when the people of London seem poised to join V in an orgy of violence. Never mind what it makes on opening weekend, someone should have thrown himself on this bomb.
* * * * *
We saw it yesterday. It's good. It's one of the better films I've seen lately (although in all fairness, I seldom watch films that don't include monsters, explosions, aliens, or gunfights, so YMMV). You should probably go.
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Date: 2006-03-19 09:22 pm (UTC)