The Wachowski brothers (The Matrix movies) and neophyte director James McTeigue have brought audiences the most competent treatment of an Alan Moore comic so far, but although V for Vendetta is a competent effort, McTeigue’s inexperience and the Wachowskis’ somewhat careless treatment of Alan Moore’s story kept this film from reaching its potential as a masterpiece.
The story begins with a brief history lesson as to who Guy Fawkes was and why he is important. Naturally, this is narrated in the first-person point of view by Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman), and must obviously have everything to do not only with the message of the film to follow, but also how she will be feeling about Guy Fawkes or Guy Fawkesian people. Moving to modern times, in the film’s world (which is presumably a couple of decades from today) a television broadcast very clearly tells us what sort of world we will be witnessing throughout the film. The future in V for Vendetta is one that followed some sort of cataclysm, and England saw fit to cleanse itself from the perversions of homosexuality and non-white ethnicities.
Evey Hammond is getting ready to go out, despite reminders of the strict curfew that is imposed on the citizens of London. As she decorates herself, another character elsewhere is putting on a harlequin mask. Both Evey and the masked character turn off their televisions at the same time, and exit the scene.
Evey is hurrying through shadowy side streets when she bumps into some rough-looking men who begin to intimidate her. When she pepper-sprays one of the men, they reveal their identification badges, which indicate that they’re some form of police (these badges bear the swastika-like symbol that was adopted for the film version of V for Vendetta). Now these men begin to get really scary, implying that since Evey had assaulted them, they were authorized to take any form of retaliation they saw fit. Any form. Spooky thoughts begin to fill viewers’ minds as Evey begs the men to excuse her for her mistake, but her pleas are ignored as they grab her and begin to force her.
Enter a voice quoting Macbeth, a man dressed in black, wearing some type of military fashion, with a cape and hat, and of course, the Guy Fawkes mask. The mysterious character, who will awkwardly introduce himself later as “V” using a long-winded alliterative speech that demonstrates the Wachowskis’ ability to use the dictionary, beats up the crooked policemen and invites Evey to accompany him somewhere else. What follows is a fairly tightly constructed film about “V,” who represents some revolutionary ideal fighting against a totalitarian government that had subjected him and many others to treatment very similar to the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany. The London he wishes to awaken is sick and complacent, and Evey is our window into his world.
As a fan of the comic, I saw many problems with the film, unnecessary changes that were made to simplify the story, not only to turn an originally large story into a two hour film, but changes that were made to apparently make things clear and easy to understand for the audience, even to the point of taking some original details from the comic and transforming them into clichés. I’ll begin with the negative aspects, the changes that I found bothersome, contradictory, and unnecessary, but I will also try to point out some of the appropriate changes that were made to fit the story into a film.
Generally, there is a feeling of excitement that builds up in seeing V on a large screen, breathing and three-dimensional. Hugo Weaving did a superb job with what he was given, and the minor glitches in the character of V cannot be attributed to him. I was willing to accept changes to the story, and removal of several characters, but I could not understand why the filmmakers chose to interfere with V and how he is supposed to be represented. V’s emotional breakdown, smashing a mirror and crying heavily in his hand, being nervous at asking Evey to dance with him, introducing himself with a monologue that is one large alliteration of words beginning with “V,” are some of the changes that I simply couldn’t understand. Also, the filmmakers felt obliged, it seems, to make the emotion between Evey and V very very clear to the audience… there is a kiss. It was cheesy, and not something taken from the comic. And of course, another blow is dealt to the mystery of V as we learn in some more detail the side effects that the government’s experiments on him had, the damage and so on. But why? How can they so comfortably, in the end, expect us to believe that V represents an ideal when they emphasize that he was a victim, hardened by brutal experiments, but who despite all of that can still be as emotionally awkward as a teenage boy? These are minor points, but they did partially break what V is supposed to represent.
“And in the yard, I saw him. He had the flames behind him. He was naked… He looked at me. As if I were an insect. Oh God. As if I were something mounted on a slide. He looked at me.”
This was changed to (paraphrased):
“He was naked… He looked at me. I could see that he no longer had eyes, but I knew he could see me. He looked at me.”
Those do not at all mean the same thing. One sentence gives us insight as to what V’s psyche has become, and the other tells us that without eyes he can still see for some unexplained reason. There is a difference between mystery and nonsense. At this point it doesn’t matter. The Wachowskis took some liberties with the character of V, but these are minor points and though they scrape away some layers from the story’s original message, they are not the sort of details that would disturb those who are unfamiliar with Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta comic. Thankfully one thing that was done perfectly was to make sure Hugo Weaving played the role of V, because he was splendid and for the larger part of the film, watching V is a delight.
The bigger problem has to do with what it is the film V for Vendetta was trying to say. It seems that in modernizing the original story, the Wachowskis got a little bit lost in what to change and how to change it. They took a fairly original depiction of a country living under totalitarian government (from the comic) and transformed it into a half-fascist world, a cheap and completely unoriginal mish-mash of Nazi government with a surprisingly normal populace. The people of London were not being oppressed, or only a few clues were given as to a fascist environment. The people seemed to be living fairly enjoyable lives with many freedoms. On the other hand, for some reason the more subtle fascism of the comic was turned into a cartoon depiction of a fascist regime, with the cross-like symbols and even a dictator named Adol- um, Adam Sutler (this character has no relation to the “Leader” in the comic). On the one hand, it seemed that the filmmakers were trying to update Moore and Lloyd’s vision, to apparently make it relevant to today’s political climate, but on the other hand they used easy stereotypes that will make people think about anything but the modern political climate. Even Moore and Lloyd’s original 1983-1985 story is not as outdated as this “modern” depiction.
At this point the review must appear quite negative, but I still would not call this film a failure, and for three reasons. The first reason has to do with the casting decisions, among which, as stated above, choosing Hugo Weaving for the role of V. Natalie Portman did a respectable job playing the role of Evey, and she was emotionally convincing, which was very important for one particular sequence in the film. The removal of certain characters and combining of certain events did not disturb me so much, and I thought it was quite a good idea to bring the character of Gordon Dietrich (Stephen Fry) closer to the beginning of the story, as a way to fold the otherwise long tale to something more manageable. Stephen Fry was a great choice for this role, and he definitely added freshness in a mostly dark story. Stephen Rea as the likeable detective Finch provided a level of humanity that is important for viewers to connect with the story’s subject matter.
The second reason was that despite its flaws, the film made its point, and Moore and Lloyd’s original message was not completely lost. My friends Karelle and Sofiane both thought the film was very good, and from our discussion after we had seen it, much of the original message was finally conveyed to people who had never read the comic beforehand. Sofiane loved the film completely, and Karelle liked it very much, but I suspect that some of her lack of enthusiasm has to do with some of the missteps that were taken with the story.
The final, and greatest reason why I do not consider this film to be a failure is the ending. Although it was changed from that of the comic, it was the most welcome change, because the ending of the comic would not have translated so well to the film world. The masks, the visuals, and the music, oh the music! Maybe the film made some awkward moves to getting where it had to be, but when it finally arrives at its destination, even the grumpiest fans of the comic could not help but to feel the hairs on the neck stand up, and to smile in submission, that whatever was changed, no matter how bothersome it could be to some people, the end feels right, and the end is monumental, and that, under the fieriest attacks, the most scathing criticism, is a victory.
