I thought I was going to have a problem with the mask, but in actual fact it doesnt detract from the character at all… Much as how Darth Vader didnt suffer from being in a fixed mask, either.
IMHO, Darth Vader: mask worked. V: not so much. Good vocal performance from Hugo Weaving, though.
Definitely a huge challenge. Darth’s character benefitted from being stiff and artificial and monstrous; V needed to be humanized to a great degree. Hugo Weaving (chosen for his last name?) did a great job of bobbing and weaving emotively; Darth just stands and pontificates.
I don’t think he expected to be arrested at all. He says, after talking to his agent, that he’ll have to do some sort of public apology and that’ll be it. I sort of got the impression that he’d done stuff like this before, and gotten away with it. This time around, though, he doesn’t realize just how precarious the government’s position is becoming, thanks to V’s actions, and how violent their response is going to be to anyone stepping out of line.
Yep, Hugo efinatley nailed it. I could have sworn that the mask moved at times… whne Evey suprises V as he cooks breakfast, he looks up and is startled to see her… I mean, really fucking startled, I could have sworn I saw the eyebrows raise, the smile broaden. Amazing.
I’m really glad they didnt unmask him, I dont believe the unmasking of a masked character can ever be successful. Granted, I can only think of two at the minute, Darth Vader and Ed Norton in Kingdom of Heaven, but the banishment of mystery kind of kills the character, if you ask me.
Look what happened to Kendo Nagasaki.
yeah, i mean there was no need to take the mask off. we saw the fire blazing flash back several times and there was no need to show a close up of the face…you know its not pretty.
It’s a quirk of industry jargon, and as I said only purists and pedants make a fuss about it. I was just trying to head off a possible hijack.
I liked it.
For background, I used to go to a movie a week or so back in my younger days. These days, I make 1 or 2 movies a year in the theater—I much prefer the DVD experience (sadly, no huge screen at home, but no endless previews or commercials, and, even more sadly, my budget-refurb Onkyo 6.1 home theatre kicks the ever-loving crap out of the sound systems in the movie houses in this city—unlike Montgomery, AL, which had a Rave house with decent sound). It takes a good bit to motivate me out of my house and to a theater these days. For reference, over the last few years the un-kid-related movies I have made the effort to go see are—the 3 Lord of the rings films (woot!) and Master and Commander. That’s it.
I was initially stoked about this release based on the hot ads and good preview word of mouth. Then, on release day, it got some lukewarm and oddly snotty reviews (like in the NYT-- http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/movies/17vend.html now THAT is a snotty review). Still, I was determined to catch it.
So I did.
I liked it.
I thought it would be an action movie, but it was more of a film. That’s cool. I thought Hugo Weaving was in for a hard time of it trying to act in that mask, and I was expecting yet another round of mentally interjecting a superfluous “Mr. Anderson” on the end of all of his significant lines, just like I did throughout the entire LOTR trilogy—but he was great and I didn’t even think of it. That was cool too. I thought Portman’s understated and sweet performance in Garden State was a fluke and she was really the wooden menace in the lamentable Star Wars abominations, but I was wrong. She HAD to be the human face of the movie, and she delivered. I wished she was let go more, but it was not to be. But what was there rocked. And THAT was cool. I believed her.
When V and Evie were on the train (not a spoiler without more specific info 
), you could have heard a pin drop in the theater. A pin drop. Moments like that are priceless.
There are a number of things in the film I could bitch about, and decisions I question. I still liked it. I liked it a lot. I left the theater drained. And that is a good thing.
I have a worry, though. I’ll buy the DVD. I’ll look forwards to the day I can crank it up at home with sub-titles turned on so I don’t miss anything. But I have a worry. When I saw The Matrix in the theater, I was hot about that movie. It was cool. It was ground-breaking in some ways. I eagerly bought the DVD. I settled in to watch it. And all I saw were flaws. The first time, I was wrapped up in the story, trying so hard to get my head around the entire plot line, living the fun in wide-screen, chair-pounding-surround-sound goodness. On DVD? I knew the plot out of the box, and the movie, without the wonder of a first-time viewing, sunk like a rock. All I saw were flaws.
Will that happen with V? I don’t know.
Does a movie owe anything to the paying public besides a great time on the first viewing?
Probably not.
And I DID like it.
The first time.
–jack
Ooh, I’d forgotten about the public apology comment. That does clear it up a bit. Thanks Miller. In your honor, I use my sig.
That does make some sense because the problem with my explanation was that he was surprised when they came for him. But the reaction of Evie and the viewers at home is kind of inconsistent with your theory, IMO. If he’d done it before she would have been more used to it. The other people watching acted like it was something they’d never seen before. But maybe I’m just reading that into their reactions.
Maybe they just came sooner than he expected.
It was mentioned earlier that Antony and the Johnsons had a song in the movie. Which one was that? There was one that my brother and I thought might have been Tom Waits, but he was singing softly enough that I couldn’t be sure.
I loved it.
I read V back when it came out. I had intended to hunt down my comics before I saw the movie, but didn’t bother.
One thing I noticed was that the question of V’s identity wasn’t played up as much in the movie. At one point Evie asks V if he’s her father and another point asks if he’s Valerie.
Also…
the part at the end where they all take off their masks is akin to the part in the book where Evie imagines V’s body with her father’s face and Valerie’s face and a face of somebody she doesn’t know (I think that’s right, again it’s been years)
I absolutely loved it! I actually want to go see it again, which is a pretty rare event for me - I don’t usually want to see movies twice.
One of my favorite parts (and it’s hard to pick just one, but I will settle on this one since no one else has mentioned it): When the Parliament is blown up to the 1812 Overture. I was enthralled and laughing at the same time.
well it just looks so impressive…great pyrotechnics
I’ve just returned from seeing it, and have a question to ask those who have read it (and I suppose poll the movie audience as well):
We’re supposed to connect that V is, in fact, Evie’s father, correct? I thought there was a comment at the beginning in which the police first identified Evie and began pulling up her information that “her mother died in a hunger strike at a concentration camp, and her father in a fire at a camp later on”. Further, there was a statement, I believe in the reading of the doctor woman’s journal that the burgeoning V was affected my memory loss of his past, while developing his immunity/powers/whatever. Not to mention the “my father was a writer” thing combined with V’s obvious love of books and ability to turn a phrase. And at the end, a giant teasing delay on the Wachowskis parts in Evie talking to the cop, “V was my Father. [long pause] And my mother. And you and me and the puppydog eating out of a trashcan in the alley…” The constant variations throughout the movie on “there are no coincidences…”? I’m not just making this up without at least having some good evidence to argue, right?
I was impressed enough that I may seek out the comic. More than I could say for Sin City, which I enjoyed the movie well enough, but had no desire to read a single one of the stories.
I read the book when it was first released as a complete graphic novel - and had mixed expectations for the movie.
An adaptation of an Alan Moore story - about friggin time.
Made by the Wachowski brothers - will it compare to The Matrix, or its sequels?
Natalie Portman has impressed me since *The Professional * (and what wonderful comparisons can be made with that movie regarding mentor/apprentice relantionships), and the rest of the casting increased my hopes.
So I was very delighted at how well it was interpreted for the silver screen. But
Uncompromising vision my arse. Evie would have remained a prostitute as in the original, and the ending would have been left ambiguous as in the novel with no army of V’s running around, (and what mysterious hidden factory made all those masks with out the Fingermen finding out?) So I have to view the film as an interpretation, rather than a straight adaptation.
[QUOTE=Only Mostly Dead]
I’ve just returned from seeing it, and have a question to ask those who have read it (and I suppose poll the movie audience as well):
We’re supposed to connect that V is, in fact, Evie’s father, correct? <snip> I’m not just making this up without at least having some good evidence to argue, right?
I agree that enough suggestions where planted to give the impression, but I have never felt that V was her father. I doubt that was ever Moore’s intention either, and I dont remember getting that feeling from the comics. I always viewed V as more in common with The Prisoner, and purposely left as an enigma. We know his origin, but never his identity.
AP
Not sure what qualifies as spoilers in this thread, so I’ll just err on the side of caution.
IMO, no, V is not her father. He could be, but I think the plot, even softened as it was in the film, rejects that kind of Hollywood tidiness.
As Evey says, “He’s my father. He’s my mother. He’s you. He’s me. He’s all of us.”
As far as Gordon’s seemingly foolish miscalculation about Suttler’s reaction, my impression was that he was already on the edge because of years of supressing his homosexuality and watching the nation fall into fascism. He was strongly affected by V’s televised speech, telling Evey that he’s “right.” V’s seeming invulnerability made the government seem weak in comparison and Gordon, caught up in the hope that change could actually be in the making, took a risk that, deep down, he knew might kill him, but he had to grab onto the possibility that V presented. His reassurances to Evey that he would only be required to make an apology were, I think, attempts to reassure himself as well.
I was thinking about that scene after reading your comment, and it struck me just how totally V manipulates Evie in almost every interaction they have. V was surprised? Not on your life. Who is he cooking breakfast for? Himself? What’s he going to do, cram it through the mouth grill of his mask? That whole scene was orchestrated to make him look less threatening to Evie - the frilly apron, the “accidental” reveal of his scarred hands, the breakfast with real butter. It’s all contrived to show himself as not just a psycho terrorist, but someone who is also goofy, domestic, and wounded. The whole thing is completly calculated to make himself more appealing to Evie.
From Hell?
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?
Am I being whooshed?
He could be cooking breakfast for himself, why not? Just lift up the mask.
I think the cooking could be for maniupulation, or it could be genuine. Hard to say.
What are you talking about? Those movie versions don’t exist, la la la la… walks away with fingers in ears