V for Vendetta

Fishy and I just got back from seeing V for Vendetta. One word: Awesome. I can't say there was nothing wrong with it, but it was incredibly enjoyable. The Wachowskis' screenplay was surprisingly true to Alan Moore and David Lloyd's original, of which I am a big fan. Perhaps the thing that impressed me the most was that they appear to have kept Valerie's letter intact, verbatim or close to it. Hugo Weaving was perfect as V, although I had a hard time imagining him in the role before tonite. Natalie Portman was great as Evey, too, but an Evey rather different than the one from the g.n.

Don't get me wrong: this was not a word for word retelling of the graphic novel. Adjustments were made. Characters and plotlines were changed or omitted completely (as required in any movie adaptation), but this was still far more than I could have hoped from a Hollywood treatment of this story. (maybe my standards and expectations are too low.) Moore wrote this during Thatcher's reign and the riots that accompanied it. Moore wrote about facism. There are fascist allusions in the movie, but nothing explicit, to the movie's detriment. They also kind of wus out in their criticism of America, and they should have been far more explicit. (Of course, as Fishy points out, there's no way they could have gotten away with such blatant anti-Bush references in this day and age.)

I ultimately enjoyed this movie in the same way I came to enjoy the Lord of the Rings movies: as a supplemental experience to the original, printed version, rather than as a replacement for it. Alan Moore, I have no doubt, would be at the very least deeply disappointed with the movie, but I think people going into the movie fresh, or Moore fans who are willing to look at the movie as a supplement to the book will find something worth seeing.