V For Victory

So thanks, as always, to the wonderful Byalick, Irene and I found ourselves in the Warners screening room here in the city checking out the highly anticipated movie adaptation of the classic graphic novel V FOR VENDETTA. Despite the Wachowski's involvement, my expectations weren't low, but weren't high either. It's a tough book to adapt and it has tons of shit in it that I would never have thought would have made it to the screen. Luckily, I was wrong. As the lads have been hearing me preach about for the last two days, the movie starts of REALLY FUCKING GOOD and then gets REALLY FUCKING GREAT. Now, I'm sure some fanboys are gonna find issues with it, because of the stuff that's not in it, but it's true to the source material as it IS the story as it was in the novel and they don't fuck with it. Yep. Seriously. It cannot be argued. They also did a very gutsy thing by visually setting it in modern London (albeit with slight tweaks to make it seem like the future), thus giving the whole a movie a contemporary feel that suggests this could happen today...now..and that gives the movie an edge that it would not have had it had been all CGI'd to make it look like a world we don't know.

Hugo Weaving, despite wearing a mask the entire time, gives another blow away performance, just with his body and voice. Every actor who ever gets a mask wearing super hero role should learn from this. And his chemistry with our Nat is off the charts. Nat really takes the material and elevates it to an emotional level I have never seen from her. There's acting and then there is ACTING and she owns this fucking role. Her british accent is spot on and man when she cries, she cries from the pits of her tiny soul. Dang.

There's really only one problem I have with the movie and I'm not going to get into it here. It's in the trailer if you look close enough. Think MATRIX and you'll get what I'm saying. It didn't hurt the film, but it was the one time I was taken out of the film while watching it. There's something that keeps this movie from being a total classic, but I hold it up there with CONSTANTINE and the X-MEN movies and just under BATMAN BEGINS. Don't get me wrong, this movie is amazing.

I think only the Wachowski's could get away with making this kind of film and they have done a tremendous job. How do you market this kind of film in this country? I have no idea, but I think it's gonna do well internationally and of course with the fan boys. The poster calls it an "uncompromising vision of the future", but I'm more pleased that they didnt compromise Alan Moore's fantastic story. This movie is a must see.