V for Vindicated : V for Vendetta

Having read the original source material and finding it to be an extraordinary political and intellectual journey, I was both excited and reluctant to see the film adaptation of Alan Moore’s opus V for Vendetta.

My excitement hailed from the idea that this could be comics’ validation to the world at large of its legitimacy as a 21st century art form. Oh, we have known about V for Vendetta’s magnificence for years, desperately chasing after and challenging the snobbish literary elite to read it and tell us differently. Along with Moore’s Watchmen, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Dave Sim’s Cerebus, J.M. DeMatteis’ Brooklyn Dreams, and many others, V for Vendetta is the reason why comics should be taken seriously.

To say I had such high expectations for the film would indeed be an understatement. And I wasn’t the only one. Comicdom’s intelligentsia will be deconstructing this film for years to come. This was one reason why I had reservations about the film. Another major reservation was that the Matrix brothers (Andy and Larry Wachowski) were handling the writing chores. I wasn’t impressed by their pretentious attempt at turning Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions into the annoying game of “Let’s cram as many Latin phrases as we can into a boring dialogue with Colonel Sanders while the climax of the film’s happening elsewhere.” So, with that mindset, I handed over my money, bought my bag of popcorn and sat back expecting to be disappointed. 

In a futuristic, totalitarian England, a young woman named Evey is rescued from police thugs by a masked vigilante known as V and thus begins her extraordinary journey to the heart of darkness where, surprisingly, she finds her true self. Meanwhile, brilliant, witty, skilled in the arts of combat, V aims to put an end to the government’s tyranny and oppression by killing key political figures.