V For Vendetta

N

neptune2venus

Hunter
Just watched this and felt the need to rant! :wink:

Much like The Island, V for Vendetta was one of the films which had potential to be something epic and then ended up falling flat on it's own ideas of greatness.

In VFV Pseudo-Britain aka England, is full of US styled TV news, US styled take on the UK (England) and Natalie Portman putting on a fake English accent - not that I'm complaining as she was the best part of the film. The plot didn't know which way to turn, so it rambled on like a spliced episode of The Bill and Dr Who - with lots of 'Bollocks' inbetween.

I'll put spoilers in now..

While the Big Brother styled cameras and government oppression focused on the residents of London (The pub, a household and the police station) our main heroine comeplete with the fake English thing - decides to be completely useless and let the man known as V have all the fun. The whizzy special effects could not save the complete drivel and wtf moments - one which involves V torturing Evey in his house with lesbian letters. I can tell that this was written by a man, the torture leaves Evey with an actual backbone and of course, she falls in love with V. How cliche!

There was some good bits:
- All the flashbacks
- Knife-fu
- The political issues/diseases that were off screen

Some people hail this as a masterpiece, I see it more of a boy's film just with the added political corruption instead of fast cars. In short they could have fleshed out the characters a bit more, less of the waffle more of the oppression, drama and Natalie Portman kicking butt. Sadly, that never happened.

So has anyone seen this and what did you think of it? Maybe I'm just being picky. :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I really enjoyed it.
I went into it having already read the graphic novel a while back, and to be honest I wasn't expecting much especially seeing as it had its release delayed.
I was surprised at how faithful it was, seeing as the original was set in a more fascistic Thatcher's Britain of the early 80s, it's just a little more updated and not in a crummy way, even the blink-and-miss references to media scaremongering with bird flu and drought warnings, not bad seeing as those were still in the news at the time.

I wouldn't go so far as masterpiece but it was very well executed and I'm looking forward to being able to watch it again on DVD.
 
The Island had the potential to be epic? That's new to me, any one with half an ounce of sense knows a film directed by Michael Bay is going to be about as 'epic' as an episode of Emmerdale, but that's another argument entirely...

As for V For Vendetta, being a fan of the comic I had high expectations for the film adaptation, unfortunately it failed to meet any of them.

Like most hollywood adaptations it was far too glossy, trading in the grit and grime of the original comic book for a vision of the future that looks more like the inside of an interior design catalogue than a nightmarish dystopia.

Having said that the DVD's worth picking up for Natalie Portman's perfomance alone, her mangled english accent (think an Aussie with a speech impediment) was comedy par excellence.
 
I quite enjoyed V For Vendetta, it's been a while since I caught it at the cinema but basically, I remember thoroughly getting behind the characters and feeling the action. It's not a masterpiece, but very good.
 
Waiting for DVD, the trailer just made me feel it wasn't worth the cinema money. Will rent it one night to take to work and watch..... I am praying its better than Aeon Flux, that was a waste of £3.50 rental fee
 
ive ordered it along with a couple of volumes of berserk from amazon to get the free postage im waiting on berserk V8 to come in stock so hopefully i will havewatched this by the end of the week im looking forward to it and but i dont really know much about it im trying to not look into it that much so i dont spoil it for myself, i know ive heard bad things about it but you should never go by what other people tell you, when the matrix first came out in the cinema everyone i know said it was pants so i didnt go and watch it and now i wish i did cos its by far one of the best films made in the past 10 years. :)
 
I also was really looking foward to V for Vendetta and was extremely disappointed upon seeing it. I fail to see how anyone could like this film: to me it is completely incoherent and sometimes silly.
 
I never watched it at the cinema because the price of the tickets makes me stain my pants (I bought Arahan on DVD for less than a cinema ticket for goodness sake!)!

But since it was released on DVD just over a week ago some people have said its slightly better as a "home entertainment" experience.

Like mcicy stated, I'll rent it and see what its like first, and if its good enough perhaps it'll ultimately qualify as a good title in a 3 for £20 deal or something.

I get the impression its like the Silent Hill film, its caused polarized opinions.
 
I watched this yesterday and disagree with its critics. Its far from the perfect film but I enjoyed it.

Just goes to show the only critic worth listening to is yourself.

Boo-'ya! Hovis! ;-D
 
I was luckly enough (some people who dislike this film will no doubt say "unlucky enough") to get the two disc edition a couple of months ago in one of those 3 for £20 deals highstreet retailers have on a regular basis.

Its taken me until now to watch it a second time and after seeing it again I feel its a fairly decent film. A bit of a cult film I suppose, though "cult" is a term hard to determine (I'd say A Scanner Darkly is a "cult" film too).

Thought I'd share that.
 
I saw it at the cinema, enjoyed it, reviewed it, got sent the retail DVD by Warner Bros' distributors and reviewed the DVD :)

It's a film that, if you go in having read the graphic novel, you'll end up disappointed. I haven't read the graphic novel, so I judged it purely on its own merits and found it quite entertaining.
 
I never read the graphic novel either and I suspect, CNash, you are absolutely right to an extent on that point.

I watched it again recently an I probably like it more than the average person. :)
 
CNash said:
I'm absolutely right... to an extent? How does that work? ^_^
Click to expand...

To the extent that if you have read the graphic novel its based on, it can be a (large) factor as to how disappointed one might be, but I don't believe for many it would be the sole (or only) reason of disappointment by itself.

So therefore, I agree to an extent - a limit if you were - for that reason. Other factors / reasons may play a part into some people's level of enjoyment or lack of enjoyment they get from the film too.

I should be a politician... :wink: :D
 
Back
Top