Opinion: V for Vendetta

Before we go on, I saw the trailer for "Silent Hill." I had serious doubts about this one considering how video game movies have been going, especially with the unleashing of Uwe Boll on video game licenses. Also reading the initial plot change of a mother looking for her daughter I was immensely annoyed because it was sounding like the makers were just trying to ride the "Ring" wave and not really pay attention to the actual story. However, the trailer has me not as scared as before. There's some promise especially in the glimpses of how Silent Hill turns into rusty Silent Hill, but then again watching short snippets of interaction between the mom and the cop Cybil had me filled with dread again. It was a roller coaster of a trailer.

Anyhow, on to what this post was actually supposed to be about. The following's not a review. Overall I actually did like the movie. I feel like the following will sound too much like criticism, but not really, it's more my thoughts on the differences.

*******SPOILER WARNING********
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First and foremost...it was not bad. I kind of had low expectations for it, but in all honesty, some of the changes were actually understandable. Though my fear about the whole "Knowing who was playing V" thing kind of did play out. I mean, it really does a bit of breaking the mystique. Especially during the mindfuck Evey goes through you can totally here Agent Smith's "Mr. Anderson" type intonation and even a bit of Elrond in the guards V plays. Of course, if you didn't know the plot beforehand it's still a surprise. I did hear one girl go, "Wait..what??" when Evey walked out into the Shadow Gallery after she was told she was free.

One thing I found interesting was the change in Evey's character, especially in the dynamics of her relationship to V. Now this is of course my interpretation, but while reading "V for Vendetta" there was a lot of psychological issues woven into Evey's relationship with V...and basically her relationship to men in general. Anyone who has read the basic synopsis for the movie would probaby know this, but for one thing, Evey doesn't meet V the first night she's out to sell herself. She isn't a scared gutter-rat trying to make ends meet working at the factory (which also goes into a second point I found interesting in the movie, but we'll go into that a little later), she's actually a functioning member of society.

So when V saves her and her fate becomes entangled with his, it's not as hopeless as Evey's "really seriously I no place to go" situation. The Evey in the movie pretty much has no choice specifically because of V not because her life was in shambles already. Evey's anger after her mindfuck Larkhill reenactment in the movie is a more palatable anger in a way in the movie, but it makes her conversion/choice/brainwash/whatever less believable.

In the comic, V's method does seem twisted (and even more so in the comic considering how vulnerable Evey is in the comic), but at the same time, it makes sense considering the situation Evey came from. Especially the bit about not living in fear. Evey was a very psychologically damaged girl. She lost her parents, and Moore did a great job of conveying these different issues. Her initial clinging to V comes from a very basic place in the fact that she was a little girl looking for her father. Natalie Portman sort of nods towards this when she says V would've liked her father who is a writer, but it's more of tone as a "You know, you'd like Bob, he likes the Pogues too."

Evey in the movie, has a similar background of losing her parents, but she's portrayed too much as a strong upstanding person who has already overcome her past and is living her life to the best that she can with friends and a relatively normal life. V in the movie basically swoops in and upends the structure she already had, compared to the V in the comic who comes in and rescues a girl from the brink of destruction after a life of disaster.

The movie emphasizes more of the romantic overtones of Evey's feelings for V rather than delving into the complex relationship that rises from the combination of the feelings that arise from a lack of a father figure, a girl coming of age and seeing a male as a romantic figure, and basic Stockholm Syndrome. Once again, this makes Evey's final aligning with V a little less believable.

For example, one thing left out was the initial abandoning of Evey by V when she begins to question V's methods involving killing people. This is another crucial step towards knowing more about how Evey can finally choose to change. For one thing, it sets us up to know that V can indeed set up elaborate theatrics (another plot shortcut was the death of Prothero rather than how V makes him his prisoner, while an understandable omission considering movie time constraints, once again this was a bit of foreshadowing as to what V was capable of doing). Another thing is that this is another crucial development in Evey's character considering the series of "abandonments" she goes through. First her parents, then V, then the loss of Gordon.

I don't know if Evey's original incarnation was too Elektra Complex, thereby being a little creepy if not not as "crowd-pleasing" for what was supposed to be a blockbuster crowd draw, but considering the fact that the Wachowskis seemed to be trying to draw parallels with the current culture of "War on Terrorism," they missed a great opportunity. Considering cells of terrorists who are either from or live in the country they eventually commit their acts on (such as the British-born bombers from July 2005), Evey's eventually choice would've been an interesting study in how a person who may not manifest the ability (but may have plenty of motives) would choose to commit acts of terrorism. Then again, this all is kind of useless bantering since the ending gets rid of the idea that Evey becomes the next V since the Wachowskis wrote it to be that V is everybody. A fact very literally done in the ending.

In the end however, I thought it was decently written. It was fun to watch, and the Wachowskis were doing things differently in an interesting way.