Now that I've written a whole one column for GamerAndy, I've decided to break precedent and talk about something that (gasp!) isn't directly related to games. Allow me to explain, dear reader: if you visit this website, chances are that you are, to some degree, a geek. Let's all take a moment to think of geeky things. Star Trek, D&D, calculus, MC Frontalot.... and, of course, comics. Graphic novels occupy a very special place in the House that Urkel Built. Perhaps the only thing more synonymous with geek culture than comic books are there inevitable movie adaptations. (See exhibits A, B and C.) To this end, I have decided to write a combination film review and movie-comic comparison of the recently released V for Vendetta. Andy has graciously acquiesced to my request... or at least, he will if he wants the photos I have of The Haggis Incident to remain hidden from the public eye.

The book, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd, is a fascinating tale of rebellion against a totalitarian government wrapped up in wonderful art and delicious dialog. The movie, while entertaining and almost disturbingly relevant today, ultimately disappoints in its attempt to translate a hallowed piece of nerdy pop-culture to the big screen.

Both film and book take place in London in the near future, either post-nuclear war (comic) or post-viral epidemic (movie). The Norsefire Party has taken over, and life is apparently pretty bad for the general population, though the film doesn't do a very good job of selling this. In any event, a young woman by the name of Evey (played by Natalie Portman, trying *very* hard to sound British) is out after curfew one night and caught by a gang of the government goons known as Fingermen. Rape and arrest seem imminent, but she is rescued at the last second by the titular V, a knife-wielding Guy Fawkes wannabe replete with mask and nursery rhyme quotes. The inevitable vendetta then follows as V makes use of explosives, poison and Tchaikovsky to bring down the government.

James McTeigue, assistant director for the Matrix and Star Wars prequel trilogies, proves competent in his directorial debut. Events flow by at a steady clip, and a potentially confusing case of who’s-who is handled effectively. He makes a few mistakes which could be charitably chalked up to inexperience (dialog often feels arrhythmical for example), but on the whole nothing in particular stands out as either a stroke of genius or a case of Uwe Boll disease. Incidentally, McTeigue is slated to direct the movie adaptation of Watchmen, also written by Moore and, not coincidentally, the only graphic novel to appear on Time magazine’s list of the top 100 books written after 1923.

The acting in this film is generally quite good (Stephen Rea as Inspector Finch and Stephen Fry as Gordon Dietrich are particularly praiseworthy), though there are a few blemishes – as previously mentioned, Natalie Portman’s English accent is a little hard to swallow at times, and the character of the Leader of the Norsefire Party leaves much to be desired. Played by John Hurt, he does little outside of shout and wave his arms about. This is a shame; in the novel the Leader is an intriguing and believable character. He is neither entirely good nor entirely evil. In the film, he is reduced to an apoplectic, mustachioed, archetypal villain, serving little purpose outside of enticing the audience to cheer when he is inevitably killed. This blunder, whether the responsibility of Hurt or, more likely, the Wachowski brothers’ screenplay, is at least partially mitigated by Tim Pigott-Smith’s downright creepy portrayal of Mr. Creedy.

Sadly, the biggest disappointment is Hugo Weaving as V. Moore’s V is a complex, sinister terrorist with a flair for the dramatic and a penchant for blowing up symbolic buildings. While his enemy is undoubtedly despicable and evil, there are no depths to which he will not sink to further his own anarchist agenda. His belief that this agenda transcends morality and his own humanity allow him to justify some heinous, vengeful acts of his own. The Wachowski brothers again over-simplify a potentially captivating character. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a lot of fun to watch V stick it to The Man for an hour and a half, but it’s also absolutely tragic to see such so much artistic potential wasted.

V for Vendetta is an explicitly political work, and anyone looking for a summer-blockbuster style film along the lines of everything Arnold Schwarzenegger has ever appeared in should do themselves a favor and… see this movie, actually. It adheres to the cinematic commandments of Hollywood; the main character learns new truths about herself and her world as the music swells, the bad guys get their comeuppance, and anything that can conceivably explode does so in outrageously exaggerated fashion. Still, political commentary abounds, though some of it is rather flaccid. Many parallels are drawn to modern governments (as well as several of the most notorious regimes of the past), and Vendetta makes liberal use of real-world footage of riots, protests and the like.

Unfortunately, the supposedly big, bad, baby-eating government isn’t really portrayed as “a boot stamping on the face of humanity.” Sure, they’ve committed some heinous acts, but the lives of the characters portrayed in the film don’t really seem that horrible. They don’t enjoy all of the freedoms that we do, but it’s nevertheless a little hard to believe when the actions of one man incite the general population of London to revolution.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the movie once again abridges the complex nature of the book here. The comic served as an engaging look at fascism versus anarchy; the film scales this down to totalitarianism versus liberal democracy, which could just as easily be expressed as black-hat cowboys versus white-hat cowboys.

I feel that going from reading the book to seeing the movie as I did spoiled the film for me to some degree. Vendetta still does a lot of things right – it’s entertaining, exciting, and for the most part smart and well executed. It looks amazing, and the soundtrack is of similar quality – but, being the anal-retentive nerd that I am, my agitation grew with each divergence the movie made from the book. Though this review has generally focused on the negatives of the movie, I would heartily recommend it to anyone, especially if they were unfamiliar with its source material. V for Vendetta is, despite its significant shortcomings, still much better than the majority of schlock shoveled out by the modern corporate cinematic moneymaking machine.