Someone somewhere I’m sure is saying something about how much this movie didn’t live up to its graphic novel counterpart.  I’ve never read the graphic novel, so I can’t comment except to say to that person, “Hey.  Shut up.  Go read the graphic novel then.”

I went into this film not really knowing what to expect.  I wasn’t even sure it was based on a comic book until I saw the “DC Comics” graphic in the open.  When I saw that I knew I was in for something I would probably enjoy.  Comic books seem to be the last bastion for a certain style of storytelling that I enjoy immensely.  The style mostly revolves around an ambiguity in the main character’s morality.  We are enticed to be on their “side” simply because they are the focus of attention (and in this case the worse of two evils is presented clearly), but their motives and actions are questionable.  Sure it’s fun to watch Indian Jones find gold things and kill Nazis or to watch the good tornado chasers thwart the evil tornado chasers, but it’s also fun to question the ideals of the character the film maker is dropping in your lap saying “Here’s the good guy.”

There are a few “suspension of disbelief” issues.  It’s a movie based on a comic book, so I’m already ready to accept a lot of hooey as truth.  Two things really rubbed me the wrong way though. Near the beginning V uses some sort of concrete sealing gun to seal a door.  When it happened I was like “woah that was cool,” but the gun never reappears and there is little other technology of the kind laying around in this not-so-far-in-the-future future.  The other that struck me as odd is the big brother-esk government can’t find Natalie Portman when she leaves V and just starts walking around.  I’m sure they didn’t stop looking for her.  They found her easily enough the first time.  They even try to explain it with a story about her at the supermarket and that somehow when V changed her outlook on life it changed her enough that no one would recognize her.  Cheesy.