V For Vendetta (in Off-topic)

Very occasionally, and I mean very occasionally these days, I have what can only be described as a 'fan-boy' moment. You know the one, like the moment you heard that there were new Star Wars films in the pipeline, or the when you saw the Lord Of The Rings trailer, or when you first saw excerpts from The Matrix. For me all three of those things led only to disappointment.

I thought the Star Wars films looked fantastic but were badly acted, badly written and had a huge hole in the centre where Han Solo and Vader were in the older films.

The LoTR films didn't impress me as much as they possibly should either. Again they look great and I enjoyed the battle scenes but, especially in the first, there were too many shots of people just walking/riding over scenery, looking like they belonged in a shampoo commercial.

And The Matrix suffered mostly from the thing that let down the other two Trilogies - too much reliance on special effects and not enough on acting.

(I'm probably guilty of sacrilege or heresy here in CB but it's only my opinion so don't hate me!)

So when I heard about V for Vendetta I had a bit of an emotional quandary. I bought the original V For Vendetta when it was first issued in the UK as a monthly serial in Warrior Magazine. I still have those comics in mint condition, including a letter from a much younger version of myself in Warrior 6. But after a long run of disappointments (I haven't even mentioned X Men or Spiderman...don't get me started), I decided to swallow my excitement. After all it's the Wachowskis doing this adapation of V, with an American playing Evey, and, and, and.... I have lots of reservations, lets put it that way.

But the trailers...oh my god, those trailers...

So I'm going to see it when it comes out in the cinema. But I really would like to know from anyone if they see it how good they think it is. Especially if you've read the original comic....

I know I'm going to be let down by this, but I can but hope....

Oh, btw when I complain about an American playing Evey I don't have a complaint about Americans - it's Natalie Portman after all - I just have a complaint to make about Americans playing British characters and equally when British actors play Americans. There's plenty of good actors (do we use one word for both gender these days?) from these countries to play these parts - but I guess the studio need a name that people will know right? ;)

Jason stratham in 'One' >_<

Best part of "One" was the soundtrack GL, especially using BloodBrothers by Papa Roach for that fight at the end where the bad guy is banished to the prison planet :)

He should stick to playing Londoners. Now Snatch there's a movie...and funnily enough featuring an American playing an Irishman. But then you don't need to believe the accent in that one do you?

I think even an Irishman would have a problem following the accent in that movie Johnny :)

I am Li Law! I'm nobodies <un-pg expletive>

Oh, yes, you are! :P

(I'm not going to make fun of Johnny's 'fanboy moment". I'm not going to make fun of Johnny's 'fanboy moment". I'm not going to make fun of Johnny's 'fanboy moment". I'm not going to make fun of Johnny's 'fanboy moment".)

Yeah alright. My names Johnny and I'm a fan-boy.

Just don't tell the wife. She'll divorce me.

Regarding your casting complaints, I don't see either Kate Winslet or Dame Dench as comic-land, butt-kicking heroines -- who else have you got? :P

(She doesn't already know? Surely she suspects!)

I smell cynical studio decisions in casting Natalie Portman. Especially if they stay true to the source material and feature the sequence where she dresses as a school girl....


Dame Dench as a lead in an action movie sounds good to me!

Oh, I know! Maggie Smith! No, wait ... Hmmm. I'm stumped. :P

Keira Knightley works for me Bast and definitely brings out a Homer moment.

Sorry, Johnny, game's over. (And I so had Emma Thompson all tee'd up)

Keira's beautiful but way way too skinny for her own good. She looks like an alien.

Aliens have bulging beer bellies. Anyone who has seen ET knows that.

Keira is queen of needasandwitchia, well maybe princess... one the real 'merikin waifites / skeletor impersonaters should be queen!

And her friends want to buy her breat implants. :( They would look sooo out of place.

She just needs to eat a few Maccy D's! ;) Send her round to mine, I'll fatten her up a bit!

Speaking of Keira Knightley, it is quite likely that Pirates of the Caribbean II won't suck. I saw the trailer and was pleased to assume that the plot won't be about the last movies curse... which is a start. I will also note that they are currently filming the third movie as we speak. I sense a "Empire Strikes Back" sort of conclusion to the second movie. Then again, the force is not strong with this one. :P

As for the topic. I'll swing by the theatre this weekend and check it out.

(Note to Jon: replace theater with theatre. I'm not English, but there are some words I just don't mess with, even as an American.)

Unless you live someplace amazing, you aren't going to the "theater" but to the "cineplex". If you are going to the theatre, I hope you dress. ;)

Of course. I even do the dressing all by my self. Seeing as I'm all grown up now.

I must confess the tag line sent my little heart aflutter, though I calmed down after I remembered how poorly Moore's other works translated onto the silver screen. Well, let's hope the Wachowski brothers keep it together this time.

Not looking good. A very very bad review last night by somebody whose opinion I respect. Basically the review summed up was: Don't go and see this.

:/

Add to that the fact that Alan Moore the creator of the source material has had his name removed from the film credits........

Well, then, at least Keira Knightley isn't in it. She is saved from post-Oscar-nomination shame. :P

Johnny, what movies HAVE you liked? Give us a top 5 somethin. Then, what comic book movies have you liked? If any.

For comics, I love Udon! Street fighter and Exalted. Both Brilliant! :D

Recent (ish..) Films off the top of my head. The 13th Warrior, Ghost Dog Way of the Samurai, Sin City, Serenity... I really am having a hard time liking most recent hollywood releases.

Is your name 'Johnny' GL? I think not!

Undertow, when it comes to comics I'm old school - I still own the old Claremont/Byrne X Men and Frank Millers run on Daredevil for instance. I loved the Wolverine stuff in the X Men movies and Patrick Stewart as Professor X was perfect. They're not bad films, they're just not as good as they should be. Spiderman was too heavy for my liking - Spiderman has always had a dark edge going on but with enough wisecracks to keep me laughing.

And I was of the opinion that Joss Whedon had actually done a better adaption of the X Men in the Buffy series. Watch that and read the old X Men comics and see the parallels - Buffy as a cross between Cyclops and Jean Grey; Willow as Jean Grey and Storm - even going Dark Phoenix for a while; Xander as a typical Marvel Peter Parker type; Spike as Wolverine. I don't think comics adaptions are really ideal for the big screen unless the character is very simple to grasp like Superman. What used to make comics work for me were the long story arcs, the multiple characters and their development. You can't do that in a two hour movie.

Films I love - Empire Strikes Back - for me the best of the series. I loved SW and ROTJ as well but Empire is the one for me!

Aliens

Blade - for me the best comic adaption, maybe because the character wasn't so carved in stone and known to people. Blade was the first comic book char I got into as a kid. I loved the knives ;)

Grosse Point Blank - the John Cusack assassin for hire movie. The start of my slide away from genre movies

Lost In Translation - beautiful, funny and a fantastic soundtrack

Amelie - same as Lost. The director's other films like Delicatessen and City of Lost Children are fantastic too...

Blade had great comic book cinematography! :D The other two weren't as good as the first. :(

I also enjoyed Underworld a lot! Maybe it was because White Wolf tried to sue Sony for it (In our games, Vampires can move really fast. In Underwolrd, Vampres can move really fast!), but the plot got a bit wierd in the second.

I find I enjoy non hollywood films so much more now. I don't find my suspension of disbelief shattered when (for example) two people fall from the top of a sky scraper on a neon sigh and aren't hurt by the fall... >_<

Dog Soldiers! :D

(My name isn't Johnny, but I'm in the fan club!)

Ah Dog Soldiers - I love that too! Especially the last line. But it was just Aliens (with werewolves instead of aliens obviously).

I prefer character and plot and mood though these days - hence Lost In Translation turning up in my list..besides which Bill Murray is one of my favourite actors.

The Royal Tennenbaums - there's another one!

But if you look at my favourites list from about 10-15 years ago...

Star Wars/Empire/Jedi

Alien/Aliens

Terminator/T2

Conan The Barbarian - that's actually not a bad comic adaption - and it is more like an adaption of the comics rather than the books.

Near Dark - the best vampire movie I've ever seen 'it's fingerlicking good!'

Batman Returns - very dark, very beautiful to look at. And Michelle Pfeiffer purring.

Baron Munchhausen

Brazil

The Princess Bride

Mmm. Haven't seen a couple of those for a while. Might be time to crash out on the sofa and do some film watching

What I want a comic adaption to do is to take itself seriously.I don't mind then if they camp it up a little bit, or throw in humour but I just want to believe in it. The Chris Reeve Superman - the first film's tag was 'You'll believe a man can fly'? That's the approach I want them to take. I'm not looking for realism - we're talking superheroes after all - but I want to be able to believe that the world they live in is real.

Fanboy, are you going to start calling them "graphic novels" now, too?

nah I'll stick with comics. That word is lovely, so evocative of gloomy shops and people in bad metal T-Shirts. Graphic Novels belong on revolving racks in Borders Bookstores.

Brazil and Princess Bride! :D

You're strating to remind me of films like Dark Star! ;)

I own some comics, but I also own some graphic novels too. :) I have the graphic version of Legend and a few Discworld novels.

Dark Star? The Carpenter movie?

'do you think we'll ever find intelligent life?'

.....

'who cares?'

Show's over, folks. JohnnyWas needs to get to a bookstore.

Is it a bird, is it a plane? No it's SuperBast!

I went in thinking I was going to be disappointed thanks to this thread. To my surprise I was not. In fact, I rather enjoyed the movie. To compare it to something more recent, I'd say it was infinitely better then Ultra Violet.

I suppose I should be thankful that I didn't read the comic since that would have ruined a scene for me as well as the ending. In respect to Johnny's wish for them to take it seriously, I think it was granted.

I'm glad to hear that Vestax. A friend of mine went to see it last night and really enjoyed it. I'm going to see it this week and I'm feeling a little bit more positive about it.

But, if I thought I went fan boy about this film's trailers... I finally saw Serenity today..... wow.

V for Vendetta will probably be my favorite film of the year. It was amazing.

Honestly though, everyone knows that V is for Vestax.

Now that sounds like an interesting film.... ;)

Silly Vestax, V is for Vaynard!

Is a good film Johnny :P You'll like it.

It was definitely a film worth seeing, albeit a film with a few shortcomings (although not many films can claim a lack of shortcomings). The script was definitely its strongest point, although I do give it praise for its well placed special effects (read: very little of it), and to a lesser degree the cinematography. The acting did take a blow from Natalie Portman's portrayal of Evey, but on the whole the rest of the cast performed admirably-- Hugo Weaving's voice of V was the most outstanding of these as he performed a myriad of tongue twisters that were more often than not lost in a poor sound mixing job (and more often than not to a whiny Portman). As far as the comic book goes I can't say whether or not the movie stayed true to it since I haven't yet read it. I suppose you'll have to gather that much for yourself, Johhny. At least you'll have a good idea of what to expect now. :)

My good movie list...

Princess Bride
Batman Begins
Groundhog Day
Walk The Line
hmm....

rats. Oh well I'll add more in a later post probly.