V for Vendetta, directed by James McTeigue, has a fascinating premise--that
America has gone so far in the "war" on terrorism that Britain has copied the
excesses, resulting in a totalitarian state in which individuals are kept in
constant fear of terrorist plots, and a suspect can be arrested merely because
for having a copy of the Koran at home. Indeed, the totalitarian control is so>
oppressive that those who favor democracy are forced to become terrorists. The
hero for the terrorists is Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic who plotted to
blow up both houses of parliament on the day when Protestant monarch James I was
to address the opening session in 1605. If the story were developed in a
straightforward manner, the impact could be an extraordinary indictment of the
policies of George W. Bush. Instead, the story tries to update a 1989 graphic
novel by Alan Moore, with a surreal story and stereotypic characters who do weird
things, and the result is a confusing anarchy of half-baked ideas. Moore took
his name off the project for obvious reasons. MH
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