Movie Reviews -- Week of March 22

Morality Play (Printable Version , E-mail to a Friend )
The Wachowskis do it again; this time the plot hits closer to home


Almost never just get to review one movie in a weekend.
 
Most of the time, two, three or four open and I’ve got to arrange the whole weekend around getting to as many as possible.
 
Last weekend was like a vacation. I only had to see one movie, and it kicked ass. The movie.
 
Yeah, I said it. I don’t plan on being unabashed in my praise this week, though I may take my time getting there.
 
First off, it may be months before I get to see another major release that’s this good. Just looking ahead on the movie calendar, there are no big studio movies I even care about seeing until May, short of this weekend’s Inside Man. The parade of crap continues unabated.
 
I read this article in Newsweek a couple weeks back where they interviewed a bunch of Hollywood types--producers, directors, studio heads--where they cried about the downtrodden box office.
 
They complained about the smaller window between a film’s theatrical run and the release of the DVD. They complained about digital distribution of film. They complained about the conversion of theatres from film to digital projectors and how they can’t get the same kind of “humanity” from a digital camera they can from a traditional one.
 
That’s what they said. What I heard was “Blah, blah, blah, we really don’t want to admit we make crappy movies.”
 
To be fair, they did mention something like “make better movies,” but it was thrown in at the end of the article in one of those tricks where the writer doesn’t have enough to develop it as part of the story, so they just give it lip service then brush it under the carpet.
 
No joke, if I got to interview directors and studio heads, I’d be asking them tougher questions.
 
“Okay, dude, you’ve seen The Matrix, right? You’re a hotshot action film director . . . Why can’t you do something like that?”
 
Him: “Uh…”
 
Maybe that’s not a good example. Even the guys who did The Matrix--the enigmatic Wachowski Brothers--had trouble living up to the standard they set with that film; the second and third Matrix films weren’t up to snuff, though I think if you look deep in your heart, you’ll see they weren’t that bad--they just weren’t The Matrix.
 
I’ll say this, as screenwriters, the Wachowskis may have just lived up to their own legacy with V For Vendetta. Again, I’m getting to that.
 
Seriously, what’s the trick?
 
Why can’t all movies be pretty good?
 
They’re not. Not even close.
 
I don’t expect greatness every trip to the cinema, but I expect to have a good time. That’s the bottom line. I expect a trip to the movie theatre to be a good time. I’m paying for exactly that.
 
We are paying for that, and paying out the wazoo.
 
Think about this. For two tickets to an evening show, it’s what, about $17? Then if you get anything to snack on, $3 for a soda, $4-5 for popcorn, candy, another $2.50. You know what those items would cost in the “real world?” One buck for the soda, maybe $.50 for the popcorn and $1.50 for a king size candy bar. So, $10.50 or $3.50?
 
And then there’s the cost of the tickets: $17. That is the cost of a DVD. You get to keep the DVD and play it over and over and over again. A movie at the theatre, one shot. You get 99 minutes then a trip to the parking lot where you’ll need a GPS locator to find where you parked your car.
 
But never mind that.
 
The reason why all movies aren’t pretty good instead of pretty bad? In all this time, no one really understands why one movie is better than another.
 
Someone will watch something like The Matrix and not understand why it was so good. They’ll look at it and then it was the special effects, the cool camera tricks. But that wasn’t it.
 
The Matrix worked because it was the total package. It was a cool concept matched with cool characters. It balanced action with slower character and story moments. It had humanity to match the technology. And it had a brain. The Matrix worked straight up and also as a metaphor. There was a nice philosophy lesson wrapped up in a candy kung fu shell.
 
So then the trick to making a good movie? Can it be learned from The Matrix?
 
Yes.
 
The trick is easy. Make your own total package. Make it for the right reasons. Make entertainment you want to see. Stop making movies for the money and start making them because it’s something you want to see.
 
Hollywood doesn’t make good movies anymore because it has no heart and it has no courage. There are probably fewer than five movies a year that have the guts to say something, to take a stand, to hit you right in the mouth.
 
I really feel like V for Vendetta is one of those films, which is saying a helluva lot because, after all, it’s a “comic book” movie. Then again, comics have always been dismissed as vehicles for social commentary because of their heritage. However, books like V for Vendetta are anything but funny.
 
Not So Great Britain
 
It’s near future England. Much has changed in the world. America, in no small amount to its endless warmongering, has fallen from power.
 
England, wracked by biological terrorism, rolled over and gave up its liberties to a totalitarian dictator. Now England stands as a “safe,” faith-based country where its residents are oppressed by fear and sedition.
 
Because of their fear, they accept their imprisonment.
 
One of them, a man who hides his face behind a Guy Fawkes mask, does not accept the status quo. He knows the truths the powers-that-be hide and use to control the populace.
 
He calls himself V (Hugo Weaving), and he’s a terrorist. His aim, like that of Guy Fawkes before him, is to blow up Parliament on the 5th of November.
 
But that’s a year away.
 
In the meantime, he saves Evey (Natalie Portman) from getting raped and worse at the hands of the “police.” She’d been on her way to dinner and out after curfew when the authorities catch her. V comes to the rescue.
 
Evey is an orphan of the system. Her parents were activists who got “black bagged” by the government. You don’t come back from getting black bagged, though few know exactly what happens to those that are taken, or where they’re taken.
 
After V rescues Evey, he takes her to a rooftop and lets her watch as he blows up a building, announcing his presence to the world.
 
She’s a bit bewildered.
 
She also just so happens to work at V’s next target: the state-run television station. V shows up, takes over the control room and makes a broadcast. He basically tells the country everything is wrong and it’s up to them to stand up and take down the regime. He gives them a date: Nov. 5th.
 
He almost gets nabbed by the fuzz on his way out of the building, but Evey saves him, though she gets knocked out in the process. V opts to take her with him, sort of enlisting her in his cause.
 
Of course, she has little taste for his methods. V plans on killing every corrupt official that had any involvement with a concentration camp where he was a prisoner. It’s okay, however. He’ll have another chance to win her to his cause. A year is a long time and he has promises to keep.
 
Sounds fairly straightforward, right?
 
It is.
 
Sort of.
 
The story is merely a mask, a metaphor, for political commentary.
 
When V for Vendetta was originally written by Alan Moore, he meant it as a commentary on the administration of Margaret Thatcher. As a film, it reads more like an indictment of the direction of the United States and our current... regime.
 
In V for Vendetta, the citizens are controlled by fear. Fear of repercussions from the government. Fear of terrorists. Fear of their shadows.
 
They do not live free, they only think they do. Worse still, they are thankful for their imprisonment. It’s okay to give up some freedoms for the sake of the greater good.
 
Tell me where I’ve heard that before (cough, Patriot Act, cough).
 
We’re seeing some of the things in V for Vendetta in our country right now.
 
Which should we be more afraid of? The “terrorists” or further restrictions to the freedom the founding fathers worked so hard to give us?
 
That a comic book movie can make you ask these questions is testament to the quality of the thing.
 
V, as a character, is also interesting because he’s a terrorist. He’s angry with the way of the world and he employs terrorist tactics to carry out his aims. He blows up buildings, assassinates people.
 
He considers his actions acts of patriotism, his cause, freedom. By that same rationale, couldn’t the actions of the forefathers of this country be considered acts of terrorism?
 
It’s the question that makes the film interesting. How can we in this day and age cheer for the hero of the story when he’s a terrorist? Because his cause is true? Do the ends justify the means? 
 
Getting away from the politics of the thing, the story is smart and the characters are compelling. Evey is no damsel in distress, V no typical zealot. The acting, I could actually talk about it, which again, is saying something for a comic book movie.
 
Ms. Portman does a good job, but she’s outshown by Weaving, who’s so good in this role, you’d swear the mask actually mirrors the emotions he’d have on his face if you could see it, which you never get to do.
 
I could go on all day. And I have. Let’s end it this way. Remember all that complaining I did about going to the theatre back at the beginning of the column? I’m going to go see this one again--at the theatre.
 
Until next week . . .