Neal's Workshop

After months of waiting for V for Vendetta or ("VforV") to hit the box office, it finally came and I finally got my chance to see it on Saturday.

Synopsis:
Picture 1984 and London. It's approximately 2020 and a Hitler-esque leader named "Sutler" (Whose name bears a not-so-"subtle" similarity to "Hitler") rules over England. Gestapo-like police known as fingermen prey on the citizens. The media is monopolized and controlled by the government. Freedoms are limited and fears abound. Enter our protagonist known as "V". V is a hero, a terrorist and an idea. He is monster. And he has a plan. V wants to set England free from the government by empowering the people through public and symbolic gestures such as assassination (Trust me, they deserve it), blowing things up, and other fairly ingenious tactics I'll leave unsaid.

Review:
As you've certainly heard, assuming you're exposed to any video-based media at all, V says, "People should not fear their governments; governments should fear their people." Anyone who appreciates liberty should smile at this idea. I posit that VforV isn't simply about taking a stand against the government; rather, it's also about taking a stand for what you believe. V does what he does because he believes it is right. V acts because inaction would compromise his integrity. And V is, above all, a hero. Though these are ideas that should inspire us, not everyone felt like I did.

Hence, there are some negative reviews out there. One of the harshest reviews is from David Denby of The New Yorker. Denby states:

"V for Vendetta," [is] a dunderheaded pop fantasia that celebrates terrorism and destruction . . . “Vendetta” doesn’t have any ideas, except for a misbegotten belief in cleansing acts of violence.

Perhaps the ideas were too complex for Denby. The violence in VforV is more or less tame. For example, most all of V's victims had committed horrible atrocities and their deaths feel justified. Furthermore, V's bombings likely didn't even hurt anyone (for reasons I won't disclose). Consider this: revolutions are historically violent happenings. But in VforV such is not the case (I'll leave the "why" for you to figure out as I don't want to spoil the movie any more than necessary).

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of the AJC is only slighty less harsh:

"The picture's earnest politics are often as golly-gee cheeseball as its plot and characters . . . But the movie undercuts itself with its garishly adolescent tone."

Apparently, critiquing VforV as "adolescent" is easier when you use works like "golly-gee."

Eleanor, "Please."

Gillespie does squeeze out a compliment but only by comparing it to (Are you f'ing kidding me?) Daredevil.

Conclusion:
I can only conclude that Denby and Gillespie (and others like crazy-ass Debbie Schlussel) didn't like VforV because they either a) didn't understand it or b) saw something inherent in VforV that upset them. Maybe they got squeamish at its anarchist underpinnings. Perhaps they couldn't see past the inevitable (But in my opinion unintentional) correlations between VforV and the U.S. government or the war in Iraq. Guess what: not every piece of modern media is intentionally anti-George W. or the U.S. government's war on terror! Indeed, the Wachowskis wanted to make VforV before 9/11 even happened! And for all you Dubya-hating Dems, if you think VforV was just an attack on conservatives, guess what, you missed the point, too! What both Dems and Pubs seem to miss is that the movie is anti-government. This bears repeating: V for Vendetta is anti-government.

As for similarities between the movie and our current government, instead of getting upset about them or writing the movie off as leftist propaganda, how about simply increasing your vigilence on the powers that be (Whether they be Republican or Democrat or otherwise).

I give V for Vendetta a "K" for "Kickass" for being wonderfully subversive in that its primary political stand is to oppose restrictive government by supporting freedom: the freedom to control one's own life; the freedom to do what we please; and the freedom to oppose a government that would enslave us. All of these concepts are straight up autoDogmatic's alley.

Rating:

A+