New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 442901" data-attributes="member: 23">V For Vendetta (2005) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.criticverse.com%2Fposts%2Fv-for-vendetta%2Fposter.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f36fae56021042ead53ac073da2640711dae98e4ea05982ddca51d3748c4dae3" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 628px" />First off, I think of this as a very recent adaption. What a shock to find it's 21 years old.My awareness of the title goes back to the late-Eighties when Alan Moore's original early-Eighties strips were adapted to a colourised deluxe format DC comics (hot on the heels of Moore's Watchmen). It was a big deal at the time: the independent comic shops that were my regular weekend haunts were abuzz, and a couple of friends snapped up the graphic novel and gushed about a dark new world. In the callowness of my youth I decided it wasn't super heroic enough for my tastes and skipped it.I've never rectified this, which is a good thing when it comes to the film because I have no attachment to the original and no preconceptions beyond knowing the Guy Fawkes imagery and the theme of a dystopian near future.If I'd had expectations, I feel this would have been it. Everything felt familiar, no doubt helped by the Orwellian influence. There's an awful lot of Nineteen Eighty-Four in there (in this particular adaption, there's the added ironic touch of John Hurt playing this film's Big Brother, angry diatribes appearing over a huge screen). Naturally there's iconography that evokes images of Naziism but I'm sure potential allusions to other, more recent governments could also be analysed in depth if one were so inclined.While watching, I had no idea who was playing V, and I was quite happy not knowing. Then it turned out to be common knowledge, with the actor's name appearing on posters and in the credits. I found this a little surprising since I'd thought it would hold more power if the identity was kept under wraps. Still - there's no arguing it's a nice performance. As I watched, I also didn't know who was playing Evey. The British (contemporary RP) accent was pretty accurate, but there were a few moments that made me wonder if she was American or Australian. The big tall for me was that lazy Hollywood actress thing of not distinguishing her "w" sounds with her lips following a vowel (her mouth stayed open saying phrases like "I was", which would throw a lip reader).Considering the American screenwriters, producers and lead actress and the Australian producer and director, the film still felt pleasingly British most of the time, with plenty of British actors lower down the cast list. Still, I can understand Alan Moore not wanting to be credited, because it's easy to imagine there were some big liberties taken with the story. As it was, I found myself irritated with occasional non-British words such as "elevator" working their way in, as well as the American pronunciations of words like "schedule" and "lever" (the latter came at a very crucial point towards the end, and my annoyance took me out of the moment).At risk of being paradoxical, the film looks sumptuously drab. It's very easy to watch, and (sadly) there's also a currency to some of its themes. I'm very glad I watched this before it dropped off Prime, even if I feel a little guilty that I'm finally finding this story by an adaption rather than the original medium.</blockquote>

Verification: 6 + 4 =