More DVD Archives- "V For Vendetta" & "Stranger Than Fiction"

03-03-07

"V For Vendetta"

It's wonderful that such a film was even made, by a major studio nonetheless, considering the current state of the world. “V For Vendetta” has a lot of important things to say- examining the roots of terrorism, the desires for revolution, the evils of fascism, and the consequences of docile cooperation by the public. And woven on top of all this intriguing content is a visually appealing movie. It's a one-two combination of substance and style that is lacking in most Hollywood movies.

Based on a graphic novel from the 80’s (by David Lloyd) and set in the near future, the story concerns a young woman (Evey, played by Natalie Portman) who lives in a fascist state but is blissfully unaware of it until a chance violent encounter with her government’s secret police. She’s rescued by a masked man (V, played by Hugo Weaving) who shows her the truth about her corrupted country, and together they attempt to start a revolution. The screenplay was written by Andy & Larry Wachowski , whose Matrix was the best science fiction film of the last twenty years, and it was directed by James McTeigue, a first timer who had worked in an assistant capacity with The Wachowski brothers. Cool sci-fi premise, an important subtext, and talented filmmakers behind the scenes. . . “V For Vendetta” had the potential to be great.

But is in the execution of the story where the film fails.

In my screenwriting classes we were always reprimanded for stilted exposition scenes, where the characters unrealistically spout important information to the story. In such instances characters are mere tools, and for many scenes in "V For Vendetta" that was how I felt. The characters were always explaining everything and in many instances it stopped the film cold. There was never a flow, where one scene led into the other to build toward the climax. In "V" a lot of cool stuff would happen, but then the characters would talk about it and explain what they were going to do, and then the movie would get interesting again. You obviously don't want non stop action and I certainly don't have anything against talky scenes. But the dialogue has to be sharp, interesting and it has to keep the story moving forward. This didn't happen on a consistent basis in "V".

But it's a film worth watching, and praising, for the themes it explores and the visual style it uses.

But I can't help wonder how The Wachowski Brothers went from near perfection with the original "Matrix" to two weak sequels and then to "V For Vendetta", which certainly could have been much better.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/

03-04-07

"Stranger Than Fiction"

This is a film, like "V for Vendetta", that I really wanted to love. It's dealing with writing, the importance of art, philosophy, and essentially the meaning of life. These are all themes that need to be explored in film and I'm glad they did.

But, once again, the execution of the story was very flawed.

And it's not in the premise, that a guy hears a voice in his head that turns out to be a writer actually writing his life story, where I found problems. I loved that idea and was looking forward to seeing what the filmmakers were going to do with it. "Adaptation" and "Deconstructing Harry" explored the same territory and were excellent.

Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is an obsessive compulsive IRS auditor, a guy who must brush his teeth exactly 38 strokes vertical and 38 horizontal. He has built a predictable and safe life that is shattered when he must audit Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a baker who is as free spirited and disorderly. Harold’s life becomes even more confusing when he hears a voice of a British author (Emma Thompson) narrating his every move. But nobody else can hear this narrator . . . it’s in his head.

This is a creative, witty set-up that becomes even more interesting when the voice tells Harold that he is going to die. I was very excited to see where “Stranger Than Fiction” was going to take me. I was ready to give myself over to this imaginary world.

But my suspension of disbelief was ruined by two of the secondary characters (the parts played by Queen Latifa and Dustin Hoffman). Both seemed to be mere cinematic tools. Latifa was only there to give Emma Thompson somebody to talk to and Hoffman's only purpose was to explain the literary/ philosophy things to the audience. Neither were real characters and they really took me out of the story. If you get rid of Latifa and Hoffman and devote more time to developing the relationship between Will Ferrel and Maggie Gyllenhaal then it's a much better.

Unfortunately, like "V", there was no flow to the film. There were a lot of good scenes and ideas, but they did not build organically to the ending. Which is ironic in a film that is examining writing, story, and plot. It's almost as if they thought since they were addressing such issues they thought they didn't have to execute them. Sometimes it seemed as if the characters were just wandering around looking for something to do.

That said, I loved Will Ferrel's performance. He is one of the funniest people on the planet, but he really becomes an average tax man who is going through an existential crisis. Without such an earnest performance the film wouldn't have just been troubled, it would have been bad. Ferrel made me care about the character and forgive the films flaws.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420223/