V For Vendetta has it all: Clichéd plot line, overly dramatic dictator, enough liberal talking points to make Ted Kennedy seem coherent and a wonderfully predictable finish.
V, ironically, is much like the central character; this movie wears a mask and pretends to be something it is not. The shallow plot and done to death idealism is cloaked behind a loquaciousness that lends itself more to a bad television show than a movie purporting to make a grand statement. It pretends to be intellectual, yet behind the mask it’s just an endless series of quotes from literary works and strung together 10-dollar words.
V tries to put a new spin on the oppressive government angle, it tries to draw direct parallels to George Bush’s America and it desperately seeks to portray muslims of the future as innocent victims of paranoia and profiling. Yet it finds itself bound up in a quagmire of predictable characters and useless pontificating. The film drags on and onand by hour number 2, when the dazzling intellect of V has been established and the murderous dictator introduced, you find yourself wishing for a revolt in Hollywood that would oust those responsible for this drivel.
The pseudo Matrix action and the mystery of the man endlessly babbling behind the mask can’t sustain this film.
As a whole, it defended terrorism, showed us that those responsible for 9/11 might have had the best of intentions, once again touts homosexuals as the most oppressed group in history and makes certain we understand that modern day America is on the path to poverty and civil war.
Where else but in Hollywood could a film get away with having a hero that says, “…blowing up a building can change the world.” And what is the not so subtle point to be made by having the Koran held up as a symbol of “Poetry and peace” while the movies only catholic character is a drooling pedophile? And of course, this ruthless dictator, this oppressor of homosexuals, is a member of the conservative party who’s flag and who’s henchman carry a barely veiled cross-like symbol to mark their terror.
And don’t forget those evil corporate drug companies, they’re complicit in a plot to unleash a deadly virus on school children so they can profit from the cure. And the war in Iraq is the central reason America is begging the world for medical supplies and caught up in civil war.
This is old, old stuff. V is nothing but one more bastardization of a graphic novel that, once injected with the usual leftist talking points, fails to inform and fails to entertain. It’s better living through terrorism, it’s propaganda masquerading as an entity that hates lies and propaganda. It’s silly at times, frustrating at others, poorly paced and unbelievably long winded.
Natalie Portman is a gifted actress and her performance is genuine and, at times, moving. The massive intellect behind the mask features a rich voice and does convey a certain conviction. But these performances, along with some very nice set design, can’t save this movie.
I read another reviewer recently that asked, “Would "V for Vendetta" stand a box office chance today if it were set in America, not England, and the U.S. Capitol were blowing up instead of Parliament?”
Certainly not. Only in the United States of America would filmmakers dare to set a story in another country so they could ridicule and demean this one. Their hatred of family, of Conservatives, of all measures necessary to detect terrorists and, last but not least, their disdain for America is loud and clear here. Fortunately we don’t need to seek out a suave, cultured terrorists to teach us better living through bombs—we can simply find another movie to watch, and that’s exactly what you should do.
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