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How to rape a cultural icon for fun and profit
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A review of V for Vendetta: the movie
By Mike Amari

I’ll start this completely even handed and unbiased review with bullet points, because 9 out of 10 CEO’s say that bullet points get the brainless monkeys to pay attention. I’ll split them, so as not to overload your woefully miniscule amount of organic RAM , into two sections: Things they got right in V For Vendetta: The Movie and Things they got wrong in V For Vendetta: The Movie

Things they got right in V For Vendetta: The Movie

Ø V’s Costume
Ø The interrogation of Evey Hammond
Ø It’s set in London

Things they got wrong in V For Vendetta: The Movie

Ø The character of Evey Hammond
Ø The character of V
Ø Damn near everything else.

No doubt most have you are already stopped reading this and went to shoot nasty comments my way. Trust me, I’m losing sleep over it.
For those of you still reading, let me make my case. I don’t expect a movie to be exact when it’s an adaptation of a previous work, I understand that cuts must be made for various reasons. Lord of the Rings, Fight Club, Secret window. All boffo titles that made changes when necessary and still stayed true to the heart of the original story.
V for Vendetta: The Movie ranks right up there with the recent Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy in oddest cuts and additions in an adaptation. Lets start with Evey Hammaond shall we?
In V for Vendetta She’s a whore. A sixteen year old whore whose life is nothing but one big shit cake and who has absolutely nothing to lose and she is the absolute center of the story. In V for Vendetta: The Movie she’s an upwardly mobile member of the BCN network, on her way to a date when she’s caught after curfew.
To keep this manageable and to not seem like a mindless asshole spouting from the pulpit my big problem with Natalie Portman’s Evey is that she’s just not dirty enough. Sure her parents were killed by the government, sure she has befell tradgedy but the Evey Hammond on film bears none of the dangerous desperation and personal depth that the character demands. In the movie she’s comfortable, and even tries to dime V out in one major scene.
The character of V. The fucking title character. In V for Vendetta he is a mysterious, serious piece of work that is so deeply ruthless and dedicated to his cause that there are moments you’re not sure if you really want to cheer for him and join him for the rest of the ride. He is the embodiment of social change and with no more depth than that. Everything he does, from blowing up parliament (spoiler) to torturing Evey (spoiler) it is to further his vision and he is remorseless.
In V for Vendetta: The movie he is no longer the pure embodiment of the chaos that is necessary for social change. No, instead he has doubts, he loses control. He ceses to be an idea and becomes a man…which runs counter to everything this story is supposed to be about. He is made more likeable. He dose not challenge us just like Evey Portman does not challenge us. We root for him no matter what. We watch as he dies in a hail of glorious gunfire whilst taking out a battalion of soldiers instead of with the surprising quiet dignity his death was in V for Vendetta (spoiler). The heart of the Character is lost, and that is a damn shame.
But the worst of it all, the absolute topper on this shit storm, is that the setting is all wrong. In V for Vendetta, V stockpiles books, music, movies, art…all the creativity of man because it is all forbidden. It is all destroyed and kept from the public. The very life blood of people reading this article, entertainment, is gone. Stifled. Buried.
In V for Vendetta: the movie, yes, we do have a Shadow gallery. And yes, it does contain all of the wonders of the world. He and Evey watch the Count Of Monte Cristo. They listen to Ella Fitzgerald. Problem is, once Evey leaves ( for the second time in the movie mind you, spoiler) she watches guess what, the Count of Monte Cristo. Detective Finch listens to a blues song on the radio as the fifth of November dawns.
You are not given the all-encompassing government in V for Vendetta: The movie. Instead you have a sorry shell that tries to jam as many references, from Hitler to Orwell, down your throat without actually bothering to explore the ramifications these images imply. It loses the very core of the story.
The final kicker is that almost all of the important moments, characters are either completely removed; or in the cases where they were included; said characters and moments are molded into screen friendly archetypes without a shred of emotional weight.
And that really is what kills this movie. It tries to be a blockbuster spectacle at moments. In this it fails miserably because it also tries to evoke the ideological complexity of the story it is pissing on. In plain English: even as an action movie its little more than ho-hum stuff.
What you are left with is a dumbed down mish mash that will be forgotten by the masses they were trying to court in the first place, and reviled by those that crave a good story.