B- for 'V'

After too much bad food, a friend and I caught an evening show of V For Vendetta, the Wachowski's return to cinema since one of them became a woman. The film is directed by James McTiegue, with cinematography by the late Adrian Biddle (I did not know he had died until I saw the dedication at the end of the film. Biddle was a great cinematographer.)

The music by Dario Marianelli, who contributes the film's strongest asset: heavy, involved, and loud film music the likes of which I have not heard in a long time. This is the kind of score that is mixed so loud, and so obvious that it almost seems completely wrong -- but it's not. It works, unlike the film, with a story that makes too many diversions (a third act flashback/story about a woman and her lover is just one thread that takes us away from the main characters) to keep moving forward.

I walked into V For Vendetta fairly unaware of it's politics. The filmmaker's criticism of a bombastic government hellbent on controlling it's citizens with the media and fear makes eerie, and obvious, parallels with the current government running the United States (and skewers TV news blowhard Bill O'Reilly and FOX News with it's satirical BTN channel, a network that regurgitates government policy and press statements as fact... Hmn...). The message being that it's worse to be secure and submissive than it is to live with freedom, passion and as individuals is one that will surely be lost on the droves of action junkies heading to V for some early Spring blockbuster madness. These folks will be greatly disappointed, as the film is extremely talky and aspires to float these lofty themes packaged with slick and fleeting violence.

Marianelli's score is due in stores Tuesday from Astralwerks.