Saturday, March 18, 2006

V for Vendetta

So I caught the 7:10 pm show on opening night.
VV0VV

I really enjoyed the graphic novel, despite the how dark, verbose, and depressing it was, but I still say go read it before you see the movie. For one, it does translate quite well to screen. The Wachowski brothers managed to pare down the character relationships and plot enough so it all came across as simply the idea and message. Much of the dialogue is lifted straight from the book, and is beautifully delivered by masked vigilante Hugo Weaving, whose opening alliterative monologue was spectacularly given.

Weaving's performance overall was wonderful; he manages to perform beyond the smiling Guy Fox mask and exhibit a full range of emotions by body language alone.

Natalie Portman also does a bang up job as Evey, though compared to the graphic novel SPOILER ALERT version, I don't see much transition from frightened little girl to fearless revolutionary. I think it's the eyes - too much mascara. Still, her performance was good, and I give her kudos for shaving her head for the part.

Go see this movie. It's great.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The author of the graphic novel has publicly denounced the movie but most reviewers have said his claims are groundless as the movie is actually quite faithful to his work.

However, I'm wary of anything made by the Wachowski Brothers. I don't think even they understand half of what they spout in their movies. Plus their depiction of a sweaty hippie rave in the second Matrix movie scarred me for life.

Is there a bad dance orgy featured in V for Vendetta? If you promise there isn't, I'll give the movie a try.

Vicki said...

Alan Moore's a weirdo. He'd publicly denounce hygiene if it sold another million copies of Swamp Thing.

No seriously, he's a genius, and as geniuses tend to be, he's eccentric and possessive of his art, which I can understand would be conceived as having been "mangled" in the movie.

But that didn't make it a bad movie. Except for the last 7 minutes, which I felt were a little too Hollywood. But the story and message get through, even if they had to be smacked over your head with a big honking fish. It was enjoyable. Go see it.