Vonderful Veaving but no Vicious Cabaret

V for Vendetta was never going to be like the original comic because the original comic is sui generis. So it doesn’t seem that much of a travesty that they take the basic set-up and characters, keep the key iconic moments like prisoner no. 5 emerging from the blazing ruins of Larkhill, and tell a completely different story. In fact, if it is a travesty at all, it’s a bloody good one. This is no Constantine and emphatically no League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

This is the thinking man’s The Matrix, concentrating on story rather than the (plentiful) effects and leaving the big moral questions hanging in the air. What is a terrorist and what is a freedom fighter? What right does V have to impose his version of rightness on an entire country? It seems incredible, but the Wachowski Brothers have somehow created a British film, with mostly Brit actors (plus one Australian, one American and a couple of Irish), set and filmed in Britain, in a British context, with (mostly) British dialogue ... and, rather daringly for a movie that needs to make it big in the US, they lay the blame for the world as it now is squarely at the foot of America. Go guys!

Most of the items that get blown up in the comic get blown up here, though not necessarily in the same order. A couple of the subplots have gone, which is a shame, but keeping them would have led to a much longer movie. And V’s wonderful Vicious Cabaret musical interlude is completely missing. (How does a comic have a musical interlude? Read it and see.)

The character of V is exactly as it should be. Hugo Weaving, most known for the menace of his glassy stare, does an amazing job behind a mask, and – praise be! – they avoid what must have been a powerful temptation for a routine unmasking. Evey’s job has changed beyond recognition but she is still the same character who goes through much the same changes. The dictator of Britain, Adam Susan, is now called Adam Sutler, possibly because the brothers correctly concluded that a dictator called Susan was silly.

The set-up for the movie, and the comic, and the whole Thatcher era in which Alan Moore wrote the original, is that an entirely unpalatable government took power because it was allowed to by a populace that wanted security more than it wanted freedom, preaching the mantra that “there is no alternative but us”. (Strangely this is V's attitude as well.) I forget if movie-V’s line is in the comic, but it should be: “People should not fear their governments. Governments should fear their people.” (Though Roger Ebert points out that ideally neither should fear the other but work together ...) A government may contain the seeds for going bad within itself, and that is its fault. But if those seeds are allowed to flower, that’s the people’s fault. That works just as much today, in the era of the Divine Helmsman of Downing Street, as it did in the days of Iron Margaret.

Alan Moore has performed his ritual disavowal and is quoted as saying “To see a line of dialogue or a character that I have poured that much emotional involvement into, to see them casually travestied and watered down and distorted... it's kind of painful. It's much better just to avoid them altogether.” Yeah, well, I can see his point. But movies and comics are two completely different artforms. His name and reputation are unassailable; he could easily afford to be acknowledged as the inspiration of this work of someone else's hands, and not suffer in the least for it. It’s his decision. But if you saw The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, go and see this too for some badly needed therapy.

My only quibbles are all with the last five minutes. Watch out, spoilers ahead:

• there have been mass insurrections before and will be again, but this one was a little too convenient.
• it doesn't make much sense to rally thousands of your supporters and make them stand close to something you are about to blow up.
• that wasn't the District & Circle line, which bearing in mind what happens next, it really should have been.