reviewed by Brian "The Naked Gun" Felts
& Benn "Where's the Humanity?" Farrell
“Remember, remember, the 5th of November,” is a statement that V tells Evey in explaining why we must question a government and their actions in the new movie V for Vendetta written by The Matrix team of The Wachowski Brothers and directed by James McTeigue. This movie, based on the 1989 graphic novel, succeeds where many recent documentaries fail in providing legitimate arguments to why we should question our government and its actions. Even though this movie is long in spots, it is never uninteresting as is probably the best movie to be released so far in 2006.
The story revolves around Evey, played by Natalie Portman (Star Wars,) a young woman who works at a TV station that is run by the government, who is assaulted by Police agents for being out after curfew when she is rescued by a man wearing a Guy Fawkes and named V, played by Hugo Weaving (The Matrix.) She then is asked by him to witness something extraordinary and She goes with him to the top of a building where she sees him set off a bomb that blows up a church or cathedral (not sure what it was exactly, but highly important if your British.) The next day security cameras catch that Evey was with V so they go to the TV station to arrest her at the same time that V takes over the station to announce to the public that he is going to blow up Parliament a year later to protest the dictatorship of the government and asks all people to join him in the “celebration.” Evey ends up escaping the police and saving V, but at the same time becoming public enemy number 2, and is forced to go into hiding for the year.
This movie is very good and the story is one of the main reasons. The brothers did a great job of adapting a graphic novel written in 1988 by Alan Moore into a modern piece that transitions well today. They made a very clear political statement saying that giving up too much freedom for security is not good. Another statement that is made is even voiced in the movie as “People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.” Both the Brothers and director James McTeigue did a great job of presenting this argument in a very balanced manner and I appreciated that as an audience member. I also enjoyed the script because it had sophisticated dialogue that kids could not understand and maybe some adults. I also like the beginning when we are introduced to V and he is introducing himself to Evey and in describing himself using what seemed like every V word in the dictionary, it was hilarious.
I thought the best acting performance was from Hugo Weaving which is amazing considering you do not see his face the entire time. He is in the Guy Fawkes mask the entire time and yet he is able to use his voice to convey his emotions to the audience and it’s perfect. Overall the cast is quite strong and the performances are very good. This was mostly a British cast and they once again proved where great acting comes from and that England is the land of Shakespeare.
If I had any problems it was because there were a couple of scenes, particularly the torture scenes of Evey that were just a little slow. The scenes are important and needed to be shown but they could have been tightened up a little bit.
This is an excellent movie that challenges the mind as very entertaining. This movie was delayed in its release because of the bombings of the English train stations occurred shortly before the release date. I hope come December that this movie is not forgotten because there are many categories that this movie is worthy of a nomination, it is the best movie of the year so far. In case anybody was wondering Guy Fawkes was hung in 1609 for trying to blow up Parliament. I love it when writers are able to mix in actual history to help prove a point in there story. V for Vendetta is a must see!
Brian - the Naked Gun I really liked what this picture did and was doing up until the final 15-20 minutes. At that point, it turned into the same ho-hum kind of film the trailers led us to believe. The film's subtilty in performance--not material--was one of its strengths, but in the final sequences of act three, it became overdone and sensational. Almost as if a less than intelligent test audience sunk their claws into it and voted that it need to end in a huge explosion synchronized to Beetoven's 5th. If was just silly after going out of it way to create previously strong and smart sequences. I also thought Weaving was exceptional being limited by a lack of facial expression. His vocal work was extremely impressive. Overall, I'll suggest people see this movie for its message alone. How many rights does a free society have to give up in the name of security before acts of terrorism become justified? I think any conversation about that question is always important and obviously timely (as of Mar. 26, 2006). Brian - the Naked Gun
Dir. James McTeigue
Writ. The Wachowski Brothers
Act. Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Stephen Fry