V for Voluminous Capes

Would it be bad if I didn’t like a movie that so deliciously skewers the fascist-lite oligarchy that currently rules our land (even though the “graphic novel” that it is based on was written during the rather iron-fisted reign of Margaret Thatcher)?

V for Vendetta could be worse. But it could have been way better. Here are my gripes. In list order, because I am apparently going through a list phase. Bear with me.

1. Why are capes so cool in the movies? If you wore one to work, the snickers would last until your coworkers found a batman flashlight and aimed the beam on the ceiling above your cubicle. Then why do they think that the image of a dude whipping weapons out from under a cape is shorthand for cool? It’s just silly.


2. Speaking of whipping weapons out, apparently Brit Fu is practiced with daggers that you are required to twirl a lot. It, like all the other fus, is best practiced in slow motion with lots of spurting blood.


3. How do you torture Natalie Portman? Cut her hair off. Then she won’t be quite as pretty as she was before! So cruel! But she will still be prettier than you.


4. Does the British Prime Minister have bad teeth because he’s a bad guy or because he’s British? This point was never satisfactorily explained.


5. They didn’t take the extra time needed to make up proper fake brand names for products appearing in the movie, so you see things like “British Fertilizer,” British Paper” and “British Eggs” on packages. If the Wachowski brothers were British, I think they would have thought of more imaginative brand names.


6. Natalie Portman gets whisked away by our “V” while wearing a blouse that her character must have bought when she was 12. I’m not sure what her motivation was. Maybe, “look how impossibly skinny I am! No, don’t look at the buttons straining bravely when I breathe!”


7. The best part of V for Vendetta? A TV show that was playing in the background on the set of the British Television Network (see, there’s that British thing again), called Storm Saxons. I would totally watch that. And it would make an awesome name for a rock bank.


8. And lastly, a few choice phrases that I found silly:


9. “I call it the shadow gallery.” Which is my new name for the garage.


10. “I’m finished and glad of it.” Which is my next favorite way to say goodbye, second only to “This is Janice “Storm Saxon” McTracy, signing off and heading for the tub.”