V Is For Vendetta hits theaters in March. It stars Natalie Portman (a first ballot inductee into the Chicks That Look Totally Awesome With Shaved Heads Hall of Fame) and Agent Smith Elrond Hugo Weaving. It's derived from a groundbreaking comic book series by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. It's adapted for the screen and produced by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the brothers that delivered The Matrix trilogy.
So why, for the love of Zeus, am I less than excited?
Was it The Pushback? Vendetta was slated to come out last year but got "pushed back." When a movie does this it always claims a reason other than the desperation of "because the movie's kinda stinko." So this doesn't bode well, especially with a movie destined to release in November in order to keep with the spirit of the comic book series. The early-on, ripped-from-the-headlines teaser tagline: "Remember, remember, the fifth of November?" How does one actually buck destiny and expect to get away with it?
Movie Magic 8-Ball Reviews are aggressively subjective and presumptuous since I am reviewing movies I haven't yet seen. But this one shimmies further out on the critical limb for three reasons: 1) I've not read finished the graphic novel on which the movie is based; 2) I've only seen a fairly blah (but potentially telling) trailer; and 3) this review relies heavily on another person's intel — someone who saw two screenings of the film recently in Manhattan.
The first night's screening was below-the-line (reviewers, guests of the below-the-line, secondary or tertiary connections) while the next night's was the Talent (Natalie Portman, producer Joel Silver, lots of bling, lots of fame, and only a few head-scratching hangers-on). After each screening my friend reported fresh first impressions (or post-mortems, depending on POV), actually able to see the movie twice in two days. Here they are in bulletpoints:
Article comments
1 - Bill
There might also be the idea that Alan Moore hasn't exactly been very supportive of the film, which he has at times called "imbecilic."
2 - Tiffany Leigh
Yes, that the co-creator of the piece is disavowing it is often a direct bellwether for Fair-To-Middling Ville.
It's funny that authors continue to offer up their works after so many dust-ups (Anne Rice, Lawrence Block, Hunter S. Thompson); maybe in Moore's case he saw the first Matrix movie and thought he had capable hands. Then saw the second and third ones, AND saw that the Wachowski's weren't directing -- all after he had signed away the source text.