Movie Reviews - new films reviewed

The not-so-distant future. A fascist government rules England, and all people who are ‘different’ (muslims, homosexuals, non-white skin colored, people with dissenting opinions, people who just disregard the curfew) are being persecuted, imprisoned, and killed. Like other oppressive regimes, the government came to power through a democratic vote - thanks to expertly stoked fears. The media are in cahoots with the government - shallow entertainment sedates, and manipulated news reports instill fear and keep people in line.
When Evey (Natalie Portman) is caught on the street after curfew she is rescued by a masked man who calls himself V (Hugo Weaving). V introduces himself to London on Guy Fawkes Day with the bombing of the Old Bailey and a TV broadcast inviting the citizens to gather on the same day next year in front of the Houses Of Parliament to overthrow the government.
V starts a series of assassinations of high-ranking party members, unsettling Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt) and his party apparatus, but neither the police nor the ‘fingermen’, the state’s secret police, can capture V - and the 5th of November is coming closer.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***
The movie is based on the graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore with a screenplay by the Wachowski Brothers (from MATRIX fame). Fortunately, V FOR VENDETTA is not as anemic as the latest two Matrix installments. With it’s themes of terrorism and a government stealing the civil rights away from people in the name of ‘national safety’, V FOR VENDETTA is painfully close to today’s reality and raises questions you wouldn’t expect from a mere action movie or film version of a comic book.
Are acts of violence and terrorism ever justifiable? And how close are we to the society as described in V FOR VENDETTA?
V FOR VENDETTA the film, with the screenplay by and produced by the Wachowski Brothers and Joel Silver, disguises itself as an action movie with big explosions, splashes of the red stuff in slo-mo fights, and outstanding memorable scenes (the bombings of Old Bailey and the Houses Of Parliament with spectacular use of Tchaikovsky’s Overture 1812, V’s lone, bloody and last fight against a squad of heavily armed policemen, and especially the gathering of countless masked citizens at the Parliament with the peaceful end of the government’s reign reminding very much of the fall of the iron curtain and the Berlin wall in 1989 when masses of DDR-citizens peacefully gathered and crossed the until-then tightly guarded borders), and it works perfectly well as an action movie, but it is so much more. It’s a vision of a future that could happen, and it’s a warning - it shows how it could happen, and that people shouldn’t give away their rights in exchange for a vaguely promised ’safety’.
There probably won’t be a special screening in the White House for President George W. Bush for this film!

‘A man can be defeated, but ideas can endure and retain their power forever.’
‘People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.’

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 5:27 pm and is filed under 4-star-movies, 3-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The not-so-distant future. A fascist government rules England, and all people who are ‘different’ (muslims, homosexuals, non-white skin colored, people with dissenting opinions, people who just disregard the curfew) are being persecuted, imprisoned, and killed. Like other oppressive regimes, the government came to power through a democratic vote - thanks to expertly stoked fears. The media are in cahoots with the government - shallow entertainment sedates, and manipulated news reports instill fear and keep people in line.
When Evey (Natalie Portman) is caught on the street after curfew she is rescued by a masked man who calls himself V (Hugo Weaving). V introduces himself to London on Guy Fawkes Day with the bombing of the Old Bailey and a TV broadcast inviting the citizens to gather on the same day next year in front of the Houses Of Parliament to overthrow the government.
V starts a series of assassinations of high-ranking party members, unsettling Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt) and his party apparatus, but neither the police nor the ‘fingermen’, the state’s secret police, can capture V - and the 5th of November is coming closer.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***
The movie is based on the graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore with a screenplay by the Wachowski Brothers (from MATRIX fame). Fortunately, V FOR VENDETTA is not as anemic as the latest two Matrix installments. With it’s themes of terrorism and a government stealing the civil rights away from people in the name of ‘national safety’, V FOR VENDETTA is painfully close to today’s reality and raises questions you wouldn’t expect from a mere action movie or film version of a comic book.
Are acts of violence and terrorism ever justifiable? And how close are we to the society as described in V FOR VENDETTA?
V FOR VENDETTA the film, with the screenplay by and produced by the Wachowski Brothers and Joel Silver, disguises itself as an action movie with big explosions, splashes of the red stuff in slo-mo fights, and outstanding memorable scenes (the bombings of Old Bailey and the Houses Of Parliament with spectacular use of Tchaikovsky’s Overture 1812, V’s lone, bloody and last fight against a squad of heavily armed policemen, and especially the gathering of countless masked citizens at the Parliament with the peaceful end of the government’s reign reminding very much of the fall of the iron curtain and the Berlin wall in 1989 when masses of DDR-citizens peacefully gathered and crossed the until-then tightly guarded borders), and it works perfectly well as an action movie, but it is so much more. It’s a vision of a future that could happen, and it’s a warning - it shows how it could happen, and that people shouldn’t give away their rights in exchange for a vaguely promised ’safety’.
There probably won’t be a special screening in the White House for President George W. Bush for this film!

‘A man can be defeated, but ideas can endure and retain their power forever.’
‘People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.’

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 5:27 pm and is filed under 4-star-movies, 3-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.