V for Vendetta

[rayman]

I never read the graphic novel myself but the trailer grabs my attention, after the disaster that was "Ultraviolet", this movie is looking pretty good right about now. Who's going to see it?

[boardgameplayer (deleted)]

I'll definitely be seeing it this weekend. From the trailer it looks to be pretty good and it's got Natalie Portman.

BTW, I didn't think Ultraviolet was all that bad of a movie. I rather liked it.

[jailbirdy (deleted)]

....the movie does look cool....but I think I will wait till it reached my inhome big screen....

I read the review on www.spanc.org and it had a decent rating....

[rayman]

Well I kind of enjoyed the movie, the V character was intriguing and mysterious when he first appears. Some good exciting action in the beginning, then the movie sort of drags on with the political messages, and I found myself waiting for V to come back on-screen. I won't spoil the ending but I was expecting more of a big confrontation between the "big brother leader" and V. Still it's very well directed, good cinematography, although in my opinion wait for it on DVD.

[datalaughing (deleted)]

I thought it was a pretty good flick. I would recommend it. The guy who played V was really good. Natalie Portman was pretty, as always. Even with her head shaved she had a bit of a sexy quality. Of course that could be due to the fact that she stopped wearing a bra at some point during the film. The movie had the right combination of action, drama, comedy, and story that I like.
You may have felt like the political part dragged some, but I found it really interesting. I love the parallels they had between the leader and Hitler. The scene where he's speaking and doing the Hitler-esque hand motions.
I thought the final confrontation was perfect. The chancellor wasn't the real villain. He was too distant from everything that was happening the whole movie. He didn't deserve a big send off, but V's fight with the other guys was just perfect for him, the style, the attitude, the skill.

[tstone (deleted)]

I LOVED IT! I haven't read the graphic novel, tho I have read alot of other Alan Moore work, such as Top 10 and Watchmen. I do want to read it, however, especially after seeing this film. Yes, the advertisement was misleading, as they made it seem like an action flick. It's not. It's a narrative about the people, the government and how they conduct themselves with respect to each other, and where it can all go wrong. It also dealt with the control of information and perspective, some of the themes the W brothers dealt with in The Matrix films.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was amazed at Hugo Weaving's ability to emote through a mask. The man has mad skillz, yo.

Thumb up from me.

[fayjprufrock]

It's NOT an action movie? Yay! I mean, I loved The Matrix (and the 2-part sequel, actually, although I thought it felt very much more like the movie-of-a-book than a straight movie), but the comic book is very much not all Matrixy. I really like the comic book, although I prefer WATCHMEN. I do think that Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman are splendid (Star Wars notwithstanding), so I'm looking forward to catching the movie.

What's Top 10 like, then?

[tstone (deleted)]

Top 10 is a wonderful book. It tells the tale of a city entirely populated by super powered people. Everyone is a super. The central characters are the cops who patrol this city. The story is an interesting combo of all your super hero tropes, from the golden and silver ages, through the 80s to the present, combined with a gritty street level cop show, like Hill Street or NYPD. Not afraid to tell a joke here and there, too.

Read it, it's fun stuff.

[fayjprufrock]

Well, damn. You just totally sold it to me. That's another one for the list of Things To Buy When I Get Back To Britain.

Cheers, pet!

[tstone (deleted)]

Always love to point the way to the good stuff.

[bimpavidus (deleted)]

Aye, thanks for the tip. Just went out and bought it, will read it this weekend.

cheers

[fayjprufrock]

Finally went to see this, and thought it was excellent. Very true to the comic book, and the alterations they'd made, such as they were, only served to strengthen it and lend depth.

Have to agree that Hugo Weaving did a hell of a good job - I can't think when I've seen someone acting masked (and under such an inflexible, unyielding mask) in a movie like that. Classical Greek dramas on stage, yes, but a movie? Not so much. And he really sold it, although I think perhaps some of the credit should go to the director and the lighting and cinematography people too.

Natalie Portman was very good, I thought, and really quite lickable too. However, she's clearly gone to the d--- Van Dyke school of English accents, which, as a Brit, made suspension of disbelief pretty hard. (Hugo Weaving just about managed to sound neutrally British-ish - enough so that I could go with it. Portman...well, not so much.)

This was a shocking and exhilerating ride for me, and as for the political stuff making it drag - I couldn't disagree more. Of course, we're coming at it from different perspectives. My sister's exboyfriend (a professional sportsman who had fled his own country after being tortured by the government for disobeying their orders) got grabbed in the middle of the night, bundled into a truck and deported back to Iran not long ago. We haven't heard anything from him since.

I was sitting watching it in an aggressively wealthy, ritzy, shiny, target-the-rich-bastards mall cinema in Egypt (a country where a state of emergency was declared some 20+ years ago, entitling the police to sieze and detain political oppononents at will, and is still in force) three days after we'd had a tourist resort bombed with 23 deaths and 1 day after we'd had another 2 bombs directed at military targets just next to the Israeli border. The resonances with 9/11, and this whole business of manipulated Western media and eroded freedoms and racism and bigotry...well, it was all pretty visceral.

[tstone (deleted)]

Yes indeed. It did kicketh ass. Loved the credits at the end, too. The apparapoe seg into the music reminded me of the end of the first Matrix film.