V For Vendetta or B For Better?

My Version of this Review - http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=10585

The original creator of a few mediocre films, Alex Moore has again had a movie adaptation of his graphic novels changed into a decent but not spectacular movie just like his 3 other previous adaptions (The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen which was good but nothing special at the time as well as his From Hell which was nothing but a mild dissapointment really, and then there's Alex's Master piece The Watchmen which was post poned and stuttered under production a few too many times. Another way of seeing Alex's work is that it is his fans that enjoy the films and it is Alex himself who has been driven to the point of not caring after all his other movies were made a varied from the Novels to the point where he is completely uninterested about V For Vendetta that he has declined all invitations to help produce the movie and he has ordered his name to be striken from the credits, the ironic thing is though that this film has been by far the biggest release of Alex's that has actually worked and been welcomed by the masses.

The biggest thing about this film is that it is so deliberately attempting to focus on the plot of the film and the atmosphere that they haven't come through on their promises of slow-mo scenes with knives flying throught the air and bullets pinging off of every surface that isn't made of flesh or V himself, instead it is more focused on the speaking and the politics of this 80s era film. Although all this sounds like I'm berating V For Vendetta I actually liked this film a lot as it is still fresh and popular amongst newer movies titles (Movie name drop inbound - Films like Skyfall are nice but V For Vendetta is a nice change from the stereotypical "Murder all that opposes the new view on a particular topic or wants to control the world using his death beam from the moon" (Can you sense the Sarcasm here?))

The main Protagonist 'V' wears a Guy Fawkes mask to hide his identity throughout all of his impressive monologues (Which contain as many multi-syllabled words as humanly possible). We also have the leading female actors who spends over half of the film with a very...Unappealing bald head. We also have a plot where the main 'Bad guy' as it were is shown as a hero (Who makes his mortality a very important aspect by the way) who wears vests strapped with enough bombs to level a building or two and he also makes his political views by turning major landmarks into nothing but firework displays.

The fact that all of the landmarks depicted in the film are based in London arguably makes V For Vendetta a tricky plot to sell, especially when it is related to such a touchy subject. One of the most memorable scenes involves a tube train packed with enough explosives to make a guerrilla faction blush...This isn't going to go down well with a decent part of British cinemagoers. Although saying that, we shouldn't get too uppity about it as all of these events are taking place in the future where the UK has spiraled into chaos, it has the whole package as well with God-fearing, racially 'pure' and purged of all its sexual 'deviants'. Depicted in Moore's comic versions this society was similar to a post apocalyptic reflection of Thatcher's Britain, Moore's method of directing a left flank attack on the then-seemingly unyielding Conservative power-grip. In his version of this world, the only reasonable response was similar to that of an enlightened anarchist, a Guy Fawkes of the modern era, you can obviously tell that the roots of V For Vendetta's political views were built to be similar to that of the 80's (Where Moore has made it more than clear that he wants it to stay in that era).