Posted on 03/12/2006 2:55:38 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
V for Vendetta will get its share of dismissive reviews—probably more than enough to convince hard-core fans that the movie was simply too smart and dangerous to be given safe passage. In point of fact, though, "Vendetta" is not good. The film may spark interesting debates—about the nature of terrorism and governments, about the inalienable right of artists to shock and provoke—but what we're dealing with is a lackluster comic-book movie that thinks terrorist is a synonym for revolutionary.
It is 2020 and a totalitarian government rules England, its symbol a modified crucifix, its slogan "Strength Through Unity, Unity Through Faith." By day, the loquacious masked man who calls himself V (Hugo Weaving) dwells in an underground lair filled with art he's stolen back from government censors. By night, he cuts the throats of government baddies and plots to blow up Parliament, á la Guy Fawkes, both to foment revolution and to avenge whatever mysterious evil was done to him back before he skulked around like the Phantom of the Opera.
"Vendetta" is based on an '80s-era graphic novel rife with outrage over Margaret Thatcher's England. But, as adapted by the Wachowski brothers and directed by their protégé James McTeigue, the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia. It references "America's war," uses imagery direct from Abu Ghraib and contains dialogue likely to offend anyone who's not, say, a suicide bomber. Buildings are symbols, V tells a haunted young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman), after saving her from some vile, rampaging cops: "Blowing up a building can change the world." The filmmakers have insisted that V is not intended to be a hero. Which is bollocks.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Wow. When even Newsweek and Time say your movie is pro-terrorist. . . .
"what we're dealing with is a lackluster comic-book movie that thinks terrorist is a synonym for revolutionary."
Unfortunately that conclusion isn't supported by evidence.
The character "V" in the movie does not target or kill civilians.
The buildings that "V" destroys in the movie are empty of people and have already been abandoned by the government, a government which is unambiguously evil.
It falls on deaf ears. Funny how quick people are to embrace the MSM when it suits their purposes, eh?
"A poster saying "coalition of the willing" with UK/USA flags superimposed on a swastika. Nuff said!"
3 seconds out of 129 minutes. Big freakin' deal--and obviously slapped in by the W bros and not the original author.
"In the movie a bio attack at "St. Mary's" kills 80,000 and is used by the regime to seize power. It emerges that the government carried it out."
Here's a free history lesson from
http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/knacht.html
:
"Among the deportees was Zindel Grynszpan, who had been born in western Poland and had moved to Hanover, where he established a small store, in 1911. On the night of October 27, Zindel Grynszpan and his family were forced out of their home by German police. His store and the family's possessions were confiscated and they were forced to move over the Polish border. Zindel Grynszpan's seventeen-year-old son, Herschel, was living with an uncle in Paris. When he received news of his family's expulsion, he went to the German embassy in Paris on November 7, intending to assassinate the German Ambassador to France. Upon discovering that the Ambassador was not in the embassy, he settled for a lesser official, Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath. Rath, was critically wounded and died two days later, on November 9.
The assassination provided Goebbels, Hitler's Chief of Propaganda, with the excuse he needed to launch a pogrom against German Jews. Grynszpan's attack was interpreted by Goebbels as a conspiratorial attack by "International Jewry" against the Reich and, symbolically, against the Fuehrer himself. This pogrom has come to be called Kristallnacht, "the Night of Broken Glass."
On the nights of November 9 and 10, gangs of Nazi youth roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes, burning synagogues and looting. In all 101 synagogues were destroyed and almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, Jews were physically attacked and beaten and 91 died (Snyder, Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: Paragon House, 1989:201).
The official German position on these events, which were clearly orchestrated by Goebbels, was that they were spontaneous outbursts. The Fuehrer, Goebbels reported to Party officials in Munich, "has decided that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either." (Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper & Row, 1983:165)
Three days later, on November 12, Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Present at the meeting were Goering, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials. The intent of this meeting was two-fold: to make the Jews responsible for Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale for promulgating a series of antisemitic laws which would, in effect, remove Jews from the German economy. An interpretive transcript of this meeting is provided by Robert Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, New York: Harper and Row, 1983:164-172):
Again, only a wussified American would think that the entire film, based on a hypothetical fascist takeover of BRITAIN, is a 129 minute screed against the United States.
In 129 minutes of film, the United States is mentioned _twice_ and that flag gets 3 seconds of air time.
I'm quite glad that the freedoms of the West are being defended by men and women of sterner stuff instead of a bunch of hypersensitive hysterical ninnies who find their country being mentioned twice in 129 minutes, and having the US flag used for 3 seconds of air time in a way that was obviously slapped together by the W brothers and not the original author.
Any American who finds this entire movie offensive should be ashamed of their own GUTLESSNESS.
Yeah,
the meanin is
Fascist governments are bad, and it is morally acceptable to use violence to overturn them.
Next.
Oh there's the so called "hidden" "nudge nudge wink wink message" of "America is fascist".
Really?
Where?
America's war: 1 mention
Composite flag: 3 seconds of air time
And the so-called "oh it's against christianity" argument.
Of course, depicting a fictional example of what JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF WARNED OF IN Matthew 7:15 to 7:20, is
CLEARLY ANTI-CHRISTIAN.
Isn't it?
Well lets face it. It's only the insecure who will freak out over 3 seconds of footage,
and one reference,
in a 120 minute movie.
Given that that's all it takes to get these people to freak out and ignore the entire pro-liberty message of the rest of the movie, rational argument is wasted upon them.
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