Balls and Walnuts
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V . . . for Virtue
For the Short Attention Span Theater-goers among you: V for Vendetta gets four BIG thumbs up from Walnut and Balls. Bear in mind that Balls is one tough customer when it comes to movies.
On to the review.
I wish I wasn’t afraid all the time.
Imagine being a movie reviewer, and living in fear that someone might mistake you as a terrorist sympathizer. From David Denby’s review of V for Vendetta in The New Yorker:
“V for Vendetta,” a dunderheaded pop fantasia that celebrates terrorism and destruction
Okay, that’s quite enough out of you, Mr. Denby. Meanwhile, around the block at The New York Times, Manohla Dargis chimes in:
Is the man in the mask who wants to make Parliament go boom Osama bin Laden or Patrick Henry? Or just a Phantom of the Opera clone who likes to kick back to the cult sounds of Antony and the Johnsons? Your guess is as good as mine, and I’ve seen the film.
How about that other rock of journalism, The Washington Post? From Stephen Hunter’s review:
“V for Vendetta” is a piece of pulp claptrap; it has no insights whatsoever into totalitarian psychology and always settles for the cheesiest kinds of demagoguery and harangue as its emblems of evil. They say they want a revolution? Then give us a revolution, one that’s believable, frightening, heroic, coherent and not a teenagers’ freaky power trip.
Doesn’t anyone get it? Sure — Peter Travers in Rolling Stone:
Calling Warner Bros. irresponsible for releasing a film that rouses an audience to action is like calling the Constitution irresponsible for protecting free speech. The explosive V for Vendetta is powered by ideas that are not computer-generated. It’s something rare in Teflon Hollywood: a movie that sticks with you.
I haven’t done a comprehensive survey, but it seems like the mainstream reviewers want you to see this movie with a prejudiced eye. It glorifies violence. Its politics are simplistic on the one hand, confused on the other. It is, in David Denby’s words, “a disastrous muddle.” Yeah, I wish I weren’t afraid all the time, too.
The United States lays in ruins, torn by its second civil war. In Great Britain, a biological attack killed 100,000 people, many of them children, and the autocratic Adam Sutler (played with greasy-haired Hitlerian intensity by John Hurt) took control, promising to protect the people of England from the threat of further terrorist attacks. Now, political dissidents and gays have disappeared, Chancellor Sutler’s face is everywhere (yeah, 1984 is never too far from the surface of V), and the government controls all media, via both faked news stories and a Bill O’Reillyesque demagogue named Lewis Prothero (Roger Allam).
Enter V (Matrix and Lord of the Rings’ Hugo Weaving), a super-fast avenger in a Guy Fawkes mask. V has a personal axe to grind with the likes of Prothero and Sutler, and a political agenda, too. He soon enlists Evey (Natalie Hershlag — okay, okay, Portman), a young woman whose parents and brother have died because of the government’s abuses. On their trail: top cop Finch (Stephen Rea).
V may call the shots here, and indeed, at times the government stooges seem to jump like marionettes at the end of V’s strings, but the story belongs to Evey and, to a lesser degree, Finch. Their development provides the core of this film’s message — one of the ideas Peter Travers alludes to in his Rolling Stone review: that it is better to die free and fearless than to live in bondage, in a constant state of terror.
Back at The New Yorker, David Denby wants us to realize that he knows a thing or two about history:
It may be relevant to point out, for instance, that Guy Fawkes, who is at the emotional center of the movie as well as the graphic novel, was no liberator but a Catholic dissident who, in 1605, wanted to destroy the Prostestant aristocracy by blowing up the House of Lords and killing King James I. . . . If Guy Fawkes has become a sympathetic character, it’s his failure–his incompetence as a mass murderer–that has made him so.
Symbols need not be chosen with an obsessive eye for detail. Fawkes hated his government and wanted to see it change. What’s so hard to understand about that? Denby also has a problem with the fact that V wants to blow up Parliament:
It’s true that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, but, by sticking to the blowing-up-Parliament template, the Wachowskis have stumbled into celebrating an attack against an icon of liberal democracy.
Maybe so, but V makes an interesting point early in the movie. After he hijacks the country’s only TV network, he speaks to the British populace. I don’t have the screenplay, so I’ll have to pinch this from the graphic novel. If I remember correctly, the same essential message came across:
In fact, let us not mince words . . . the management is terrible! We’ve had a string of embezzlers, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string of catastrophic decisions. This is plain fact. But who elected them?
It was you! You who appointed these people! You who gave them the power to make your decisions for you!
Maybe Parliament is “an icon of liberal democracy,” but in the world of V, it has also come to symbolize a body of representatives who have bent over for a dictator, and have abdicated their responsibility to their constituents; it has also come to symbolize the flaccid will of the people who let themselves become sheep.
And that, my friends, is another one of V for Vendetta’s simple yet oh-so-big ideas. It’s not enough to topple a corrupt government. The people themselves must change.
Must grow a spine.
Must stand up and be counted.
Must put aside their fear.
D.
Technorati tag: V for Vendetta
Ooo, I have chills reading this. I can’t wait to go see it. Thanks for the review, if you like it, I should like it.
Unfortunately, I’m sick and probably won’t get out until superglue factory in my nose stops the production line.
M
Well, it got a 75% over at Rotten Tomatoes, which is a site that indexes various critics’ responses to movies. Ebert, whom I generally trust, liked it, at least judging by the capsule review on the site. I’m quite looking forward to it.
I’m going to the 1pm show and I’ve so, so been looking forward to this movie.
Hope you feel better, DM.
Pat, I signed up at Rotten Tomatoes so that I could plug my own review. I wonder if that violates their user agreement? I guess I’d know the answer to that if I’d bothered to read their agreement.
JMC, let us know what you think!
I’ve been dying to see this movie since I first saw the trailers for it on Yahoo last year. It immediately struck as as a cross between 1984 and The Scarlett Pimpernel. Further encouraging a reference to Orwell’s classic is John Hurt, the last guy to play Winston Smith.
Oh jurassic if you make reference to scarlett pimpernel you must see Pimpernel Smith. Leslie Howard remake w/absent minded professor fighting the Nazis undercover. Fabulous propaganda flick, but not on DVD.
Walnuts, can you give me a heads up on the amount of violence? I love the message, etc, but have a very low tolerance for torture scenes, etc.
OOoooo. Thank you for that alternate review. I keep reading all of the self-righteous “pandering to the terroists” reviews. Had nothing else to go on, but they were ringing off-key for me. I couldn’t wuite get my head around Hugo Weaving setting up an argument to assist and aid Osama bin Laden.
so is it too much for an average 13-year-old?
We found the violence to be very tolerable — that includes my 10-year-old, who couldn’t handle Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes. Admittedly, that was a few years ago, but none of us like graphic violence.
It’s interesting, actually, how much talking there is in V, and how little action. Jake said that he liked the story but found the movie boring overall because there was so little action. I didn’t keep track, but there were a good number of stabbings, yet very little blood. No gore whatsoever. And the much hyped “torture” of Evey — meh, I’m a wuss when it comes to watching torture sequences, yet Evey suffered nothing worse than a waterboarding. So — unless a good number of bloodless stabbings put you off your supper, don’t use the violence as an excuse not to go.
Suisan, I meant every word about those reviewers being cowards. But consider the source. The New York Times? The Washington Post? Stooge rags. According to my wife, the San Jose Mercury News gave it a good review, so not everyone has their heads up their arses.
NPR’s Bob Mondello on Fresh Air gave it a good review, too. Said that in spite of Evey getting captured she didn’t have enough trouble getting out, though.
That pussy Roger Ebert liked it, but STILL had to carp about V blowing up Parliament.
I was just relieved to see a movie that wasn’t written for sixth graders. In other words, if you know the words, it’s even better.
It was an intelligent script, wasn’t it? I was a little afraid going into it — after all, the Wachowskis were behind this, and I REALLY don’t look to the Matrix movies for intelligent philosophical discourse. And yet they came through for us with V.
As a longtime Alan Moore fan, I think the movie lost much of the subtlety of the graphic novel to the detriment of the prose; however, I approve of the general steps taken to modernize the story, including retooling the “Voice of Fate” as the execrable oik “Voice of London” pundit. The largest change was to the central character of Evey, reimagined as a liberated young woman, and not as a girl barely out of her adolescence dealing with abandonment and father issues.
The background themes of the story have been changed, but not the central message. The movie still manages to be Important in a way that more people need to wake up to, without being precisely an allegory for any one particular thing.
As for kids/gore: while there is nothing unduly graphic (no horror movie viscera), there are a number of knife slashings with sprays of blood that may be of concern to parents of young’uns; I’ll remind you, Walnut, of the final fight scene with the Fingermen for reference. Whether or not your young’un can handle it is up to you and them.
D
Wow, wow, wow, is all I can say. After going to see the movie, I went to the library to get a copy of the graphic novel — all checked out, and instead got a copy of the novelization. I’m thinking that I’ll check at the bookstore this afternoon for a copy, ’cause I want to read the graphic novel, then go see the movie again.
Without too many spoilers: loved the homage to Benny Hill; Hugo Weaving’s voice during his V monologue at the beginning gave me chills, but you have to take that with a grain of salt, because I love his voice generally — he could read the phone book and I’d listen; Stephen Rea’s performance as Chief Inspector Finch was very good, but reminiscent to me of his performance in Citizen X as Inspector Burakov; Natalie Portman’s waivering accent was irritating, but her performance while not stellar was solid enough when you consider the amazing performances she was company to; it wasn’t as gory as I expected, with the most gore coming in the last (only significant, really) fight scene.
I haven’t read many reviews of VfV, except the one in the Post and in the Baltimore Sun, plus the Rolling Stone review. I’d say that RS got it, but the other two not so much.
I’m probably gonna blog about the movie, if I can think of something coherent to say, other than, “You must go see this movie!”
Daryl, yeah, I hear you. But I thought that violent scene towards the end was far more balletic than graphic. Maybe too much for young children, but my 10-year-old didn’t have any problems with it.
Of course, he is my 10-year-old 😉
I liked Stephen Rea, but I’d have to say his performance in Citizen X surpassed this one. I thought Natalie Portman did a fine job. I didn’t even catch the wavering accent.
I said Bob Mondello but it was David Edelstein on Fresh Air. It’s rebroadcast on Fresh Air Weekend this weekend, at the end of the hour. You can also listen to it online here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5286331
The reviewer in Newsweek had the same slant, seeming to play to the “terrorism is bad, ya hear,” mindset. Not that I endorse blowing stuff up, but the inability of many to see beyond their situation and put themselves in someone else’s shoes…well, it annoys the shite out of me.
Looking forward to seeing “V.”
[…] Cinemax aired V for Vendetta tonight. I hadn’t seen it since it first played in our local theater one year ago, and I have to tell you, it still blows me away. So, instead of dishing out some memoirist BS for your entertainment, I invite you to revisit the post I wrote last year. Click on the V. […]