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Thursday, March 30, 2006

V is for Very Average ...

I wrote this little item as a response to a review of "V for Vendetta," the film. I saw the movie this weekend and, while not overwhelmed, was inspired to dig out my comics from nearly 20 years ago to refresh my memory, which of course is faded. I really wish someone would reprint the story in the black-and-white, as it was meant to be published. I have a couple of the original British Warrior mags, and man, does it make a difference.
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I enjoyed the V movie as something to do on a Friday night, but as a statement on the nature of totalitarianism, terrorism and freedom, it has about as much to say as The Matrix does about the nature of self -- that is to say, very little that a thoughtful adult would find substantial.

V for Vendetta was never my favorite Moore work -- I'm a Swamp Thing man myself -- but the comic's strong suit is what the film (and I have to say, most of the comic's most ardent fans) tend to miss out on -- the overwhelming ambivalence of the central character. Moore's V is a jerk. A complicated jerk for a complicated time, but a jerk, nonetheless. Reconstructing a concentration camp and melting the Voice of Fate's doll collection in a crematorium is not anarchy; it's pathologically theatrical and meticulous revenge. Moore's V is not only re-conditioning Evy, he's paying her back for her betrayal. "Vendetta," get it? The film builds far too much sympathy for V on a personal level. He's not supposed to be a hero. He's a troublesome proposition.

As an American, I'm also totally put off by the thinly veiled "9-11 Was a Bush Plot" revamp on the manner in which the fascists come to power. In Moore's book, the fascists bring order to a society in total chaos; they get people fed and make the trains run on time, as it were, and in exchange, the people relent as the fascists impose their world view and eliminate those that don't comply. That's how is happens in the real world. The conspiracy theory nonsense in the movie a) is just painfully obvious and a bad piece of storytelling and b) absolves the people themselves for the rise of the fascists. "They tricked us," instead of, "They feed us, and we looked the other way."

As for plot holes, let me get this straight -- Evy is an assistant of some sort at the government TV complex. As such, her employee ID card gives V access to the personal bathroom of one of the most important and powerful co-conspirators in a totalitarian regime. And this is even after Evy's being investigated as a terrorist. I guess it's too much to expect that they would turn her key-card off.

Dumb movie, nice visuals, mostly.

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