IMDb #145 Review: V for Vendetta (2006)

Source: Wikipedia

A charismatic terrorist in a Guy Fawkes mask blows shit up in dystopian England, then somehow becomes the symbol of a brewing revolution (and, in our slightly-less-unbelievable real world, the mask of anonymous online mischief-makers worldwide).

When a pretty lady runs afoul of government thugs after curfew, this lone vigilante rescues her. By dispatching alliterative monologue and quick knives. He takes her in. Shows her the whole absurdly complex operation, in intricate, crazy-expensive, time-consuming detail. Fries eggs and wears a frilly pink apron.

Meanwhile, jerks die. A propaganda-spouting TV network twit. A kiddy-diddling Anglican bishop. Detectives investigating a hushed-up facility for human experimentation. And the totalitarian bureaucrats who don't know how to fight an invisible man.

The anti-hero's sesquipedalian loquaciousness clashes with the government's cringe-inducing banal media. His broad classical education with their strict censorship. His anonymity with their lack of privacy. His morally murky pragmatism with, uh, their morally murky pragmatism. (For a movie set in nonexistent eighties Britain, you can practically smell the post-9/11 paranoia.)

But what he lacks in moral fortitude, the one-man operation overcompensates in efficiency. He can construct and conceal an enormous underground lair filled with forbidden art and literature, then somehow find time to partake of the stockpiles. Fabricate a convoluted subplot of torture and mind-rape, brainwashing in the name of love. Send out mass-produced Anonymous masks to conscript the entire nation. Make the world forget there's a demented anarchic psychopath behind the original mustachioed smile.

Like Batman, only well-read and lacking qualms about killing, the man becomes an idea. And the idea is bulletproof, even if he isn't.

But I quibble. Overall, it's pretty fun. The action scenes are mega-stylish, if questionably plausible (props to the Wachowski bros). The "V" motif pops up repeatedly, for a great "I Spy" game.

But the richest parts -- the nuanced society, the timeless lines, the inimitable bizarre storytelling -- belong to Alan Moore, the comic book's original writer, whose name curiously appears nowhere in the credits.

Conspiracy indeed.

132 minutes.

IMDb #189 Review: Sin City (2005)

Source: Wikipedia

In Frank Miller's neo-noir wannabe Vegas, grittiness masquerades as realism, but pulls it off with such style it's tough to resist succumbing to entertainment.

The extended edition features several stories, told out of chronological order. They focus on different festering wounds of human morality, but feature the same bitterly heroic triumph. Hope you like end credits--you'll see 'em three times (four, counting a punchy short film). Acceptable, because the end credits theme is fantastic.

If you've read the graphic novels, it's practically a shot-for-shot adaptation. The same dudes get plugged from the same camera angles. The same cynicism chokes the atmosphere. The same dialogue sparkles with blindingly poetic polish. Frank Miller's obsession is still whores setting back feminism several centuries.

Like goodness in a horrible world, the modified black-and-white emphasizes splashes of color. Blood, fat red lips, more blood, and a certain deformed yellow midget (not a racist metaphor, probably). Optimism is crushed, beauty abused, nobility punished. Every vice you can imagine gets its moment in the spotlight, which falls off the lighting grid and shatters and showers the audience in scalding glass shards.

Some disparities stick out like broken thumbs. Such as reconciling the stylized violence with the purported realism. And portraying strong woman sexually -- such as the armed-to-the-teeth prostitutes of Old Town -- masks exploitation as empowerment. It just replaces one fantasy with another, admittedly cooler fantasy. Also, lady nipples are apparently Hollywood kosher, but male genitalia is a big wrinkly no-no.

Even if you despise the stories, the twisted characters are worth it. Talented actors portray these cartoons with such aplomb, it's mesmerizing, and almost believable. Too much verisimilitude would spoil the effect anyway.

124 minutes.