Here's a few more reviews to add to my last post on this film. The NY times review tag says, “This future-shock story about a masked avenger at war with a totalitarian British regime sags when it should zip,” but Roger Ebert gives it a thumbs up (three out of four stars), commenting that the movie is “more literary and less dominated by special effects (although there are plenty), and is filled with ideas that are all the more intriguing because we can't pin down the message. Is this movie a parable about 2006, a cautionary tale or a pure fantasy? It can be read many ways, as I will no doubt learn in endless e-mails.”Of special note, however, is a brief but interesting review by Kurt Loder at MTV.com, who says “it's a cool movie; by all means go see it,” buts adds a tidbit regarding the portrayal of the villain, best read in context:
The movie does have a problem, though, and I think Alan Moore, the author of the V for Vendetta comics, nails it in a recent MTV.com interview (see "Alan Moore: The Last Angry Man"). In adapting his story, which was written back in the 1980s, the Wachowski Brothers have awkwardly imposed upon it a very contemporary, Hollywood-style anti-Bush agenda. There's nothing wrong with doing this, of course — millions may cheer. But the attempted visual link at one point between the Bush and the Nazi eras, and the Red State-baiting observation (not present in Moore's original story) that the dictator Sutler started out as a devoutly religious conservative, are strained and ungainly. As Moore suggests in his interview, if the Wachowskis had had the courage of their convictions, they would have relocated the story to this country and mounted a full-frontal assault on their target. That would have been honest, at least.Loder's is one of the few reviews I read that isn't from a conservative or Christian perspective and critiqued the choice to portray the villian as a devoutly religious conservative.
That's all for now.
(Image: Warner Bros. Pictures)