Thursday, March 23, 2006

Obligatory Faux-Controversial Current Movie Review

V for Vendetta.

V for Vacuous.


Okay, before I get a hundred responses (who am I kidding, it's still me and Scott) telling me I'm an unfeeling clueless bastard, let me just tell you the lessons I learned from V for Vendetta.

1. Fascist governments are bad.
2. If you're being oppressed by a fascist government, it's okay to fight back. In fact, it's morally inescapable.

In other words, lessons I'd already learned from The Great Escape, Casablanca and one of those Star Trek episodes where Spock wore a knit cap over his ears. Yes, V is labelled a terrorist by the almost comically villainous government, but of course he's not out for political gain by terrorizing the people (that's the villainous government's job), he's trying to spur them into action. That makes him a resistor, not a terrorist. He's not averse to spilling some blood, but since the Norsefire government is the real source of terror in the film, you're not exactly asking the audience to cheer on Bin Laden. This film is about as edgy as it would be had Joe Camp produced it. Throw in the bonus that Warners promoted the film by showing off the ending in every commercial and therefore removed any suspense you might have felt and we've got the year's first big-budget yawn.

3 comments:

Scott the Reader said...

Sorry, I haven't seen it yet. Someone else needs to step up.

Is Natalie at least cute?

Rene said...

That sounds like a good opportunity. I think any credit is a good credit at the start.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

I thought V for Vendetta was pretty lukewarm too. I didn't think it was terribly contraversial. A terrorist rebelling in a dystopia isn't much of a terrorist.

And how is it that one guy can overthrow an all-powerful government in one year? Also, it's quite a stretch that the entire country would get behind a murderer so readily, dictatorship or not.

kiwidebra said...

How dare you! V for Vendetta is the most amazing, insightful piece of filmmaking to ever come out of Hollywood!
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Actually, I haven't seen it either but figured I'd try to help you stir up some controversy.

Weak effort, I know.