V for Vendetta

Having just finished the graphic novel it was perhaps a mistake to view the film so soon after. It is hard to separate novel from adaptation without just sounding like a whinger but, whatever, the film is a failure.

Some changes are inevitable in any adaptation but when so many are made you think what's the point in even bothering? V for Vendetta is crying out to be made as a tv series.

Natalie Portman was fine as long as you accept the change in her character from match factory girl so desperate that's she willing to prostitute herself to middle-class already radicalized white collar worker. I'm not convinced she would risk so much at the beginning for an evening meal with Deitrich though. Additionally, I don't believe she would sell out V to a paedophile priest (no matter how suspicious she was of V); there was a clue, Evey, in the child's clothes you were wearing that the priest wasn't quite trustworthy.

I wonder how much of this film is spoilt because I am British but all those cosy middle class families watching tv while the working classes were darn the pub was annoying: isn't The Royle Family on BBC America?

The film fell apart in the last half an hour: V was no superhero and "knife time" was just stupid. I know V had been preparing his attack for several years but I'd like to know how he mass produced all those masks. Finch's "I went to Larkhill" was totally shoe-horned in and made no sense. As well as mass producing masks, V also managed to lay some underground train tracks and make invisible fireworks and demolition material for the Houses of Parliament.

The best part of the film was the torture of Evey and the story of Valerie which coincidently enough was the part of the film most faithful to the novel...

Still, it wasn't all bad: my favourite moment is that Evey's first complaint after realising who tortured her was to say "you cut my hair" and, oh yeah, "you tortured me".