Random thoughts on the films I see

First up, I love the original Alan Moore comic book. One of the best, subversive and true stories of our time. Based on Moore’s own reaction to the politics of the 80s, this near future story is quite prophetic and I hate to say it but there’s a truth in those pages. The story is quite dense, and shows a “terrorist” V rebelling against a totalitarian government, and getting his revenge on his previous captors. But it’s more than that, and I couldn’t quite put down words of what I experience from this comic, but it is simply a masterpiece.

The film however is a crap realisation, I read some good reviews, thought it might be worth a punt. I knew about Moore’s dissaproval, but I could understand that after terrible films like From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Maybe third time lucky… I liked the Wachowski’s Matrix films even the maligned final chapter, and their excellent thriller Bound. Perhaps they could finally do Moore’s work justice.
Knowing the comic so well, maybe clouded my judgement. But after contemplating everything, I realised I was right. The film as an adaptation is so wrong, as a movie in it’s own right it is just passable entertainment. One thing that was right was the mood and setting of the film, it was even cast very effectively. V killing of his previous captors and even having Evey (Natalie Portman) dress as a little girl for a priest was straight out of the comic. I thought it was pretty good up till this point. Then when Evey escapes, there is a whole missing chapter of Evey becoming a prostitute (Portman as a whore must have been a big no-no for someone…). Instead we get a scene with Evey visiting her gay TV presenter friend (Stephen Fry), and his house being raided. In fact the whole TV station subplot with Evey is a new invention. It works to show how bad the totalitarian state is, but that people are not frightened and living almost “freely”. Which is a mistake I think. People are constantly shown disagreeing with their leader on TV a lot during the film too. Surely their impure thoughts would have been picked up sooner and their houses raided…
One thing that actually made me dislike this film the most, was the copper following V’s trail to the Larkhill camp. In the comic, he starts to see what V is, and follows his line of thinking to where V actually resides. In the film he just “figures” it out with his colleague and just has a passing visit to Larkhill. Not very well executed at all, and neither is the “deal” V makes with the No.2 leader.
Some people have said this was a good adaptation, I cry triple nay to that, it is very bad…