Remember, remember...this movie!
Well, I did it. I set aside my comic book snobbery and saw what I was sure would be the latest in a string of disastrous Alan Moore comic book movies. Yet as I left the elegant Cleveland Park Uptown, one undeniable truth left me bewildered and confused, questioning my very qualifications as a connoisseur of fine comic books.
I LOVED THIS MOVIE.
True, I went in with low expectations, having been stung by past experience, bad reviews and Alan Moore's own disparaging remarks. I mean, surely anything short of complete feces would seem okay after all that, right? But that's not it. There were plenty of reasons to love this movie.
For starters, the guy manning the lowest common denominator lever must have been asleep at the switch, because the movie ended up remaining completely true to the theme of the comic book. Sure, they made changes to better adapt the story to the screen, but to paraphrase the book, they did not surrendered that final inch. They didn't lose it, or sell it, or give it away.
In fact, I will state for the record that I found the movie V for Vendetta SUPERIOR to Alan Moore's comic book. Hey! Stop cussing and foaming at the mouth and let me explain, okay?
Alan Moore wrote V for Vendetta as a serial. It took him seven years from start to finish, which included a five year hiatus in the middle. Crafting a story in such a way almost assures sloppy storytelling. What Hollywood did so well was to turn the disadvantage of having to stuff so much story into a 120 minute movie and make it an asset. They managed to cut or simplify the bad material, while keeping and even enhancing the best.
On the technical side, Alan Moore created a comic book that is packed to the brim with one montage after another. This is a novel and interesting concept for a comic book, and I applaud Moore for trying it. But only on screen does the montage truly work, and the director pulled off several of them spectacularly.
The casting was also top-notch. Hugo Weaving was excellent as the voice of V. That he wasn't their first choice for the role is irrelevant. Natalie Portman nailed the difficult role of Evey Hammond, perhaps having perfected the art of acting opposite someone in an expressionless mask from her time as costar to that mannequin-like kid they cast as young Anakin Skywalker in the first Star Wars movie.
Another of the movie's charms was the limited number of eye-rolling scenes. You know the ones I'm talking about the crazy parts that make the whole film lose credibility. Don't get me wrong, there were a few eye-rollers, such as the gratuitous Matrix rip-off towards the end of the movie, or the fact that in a tightly controlled police state, V somehow manages to find and distribute fifty-thousand Guy Fawkes masks and cloaks. But to balance that, there are sequences in the movie that were written more credibly than they were in the book. To take just one example, Evey succumbs to V's influence pretty casually in the comic book. That she remains suspicious of him for a longer period in the movie rings much truer.
And finally, the ending, arguably the most important part of any movie, was fantastic. Quite moving. And it wasn't just comic book nerds like myself that felt so. Tell me the last movie you were at in which the audience applauded at the end. They did at the end of this one.
I give V for Vendetta a full four out of four fantoms. V for Vendetta Prevails!
