Given what day it is, I want to throw a link to V for Vendetta, the latest of Alan Moore's comics to be translated to screen. As I pointed out the last time I discussed this movie, it comes at a very interesting time indeed. On the one hand, the main character V is undoubtedly a terrorist; on the other hand, he's confronting an obviously fascist society. While even in the trailer you can see the great lengthsto which the costume designers have gone in order to create an association with fascism of the Nazi variety, the original work was less compromising: after being left mostly unscathed after a nuclear war, Britain descends into fascism quite well on its own. (Rumor has it that the alternate history plot of the movie involves a Nazi victory in WWII.)

As the Wachovski Bros. have their part in the film, there should be no shortage of action. I wonder, however, at the degree to which the screenwriters will go to make it "relevant" to current political events. Whoever is doing the marketing isn't being coy in the trailer: there's not entirely unsubtle associations available when the chief inspector asks, "If our government is responsible for the deaths of a hundred thousand people, do you really want to know?" That could actually be quite exciting to see in the film if V retains its moral ambiguity, and V himself is not rewritten to be a completely sympathetic character. Given the present trends in Hollywood, this is possible, even if I'm not keeping my hopes up. On the other hand, given the number of people willing to label the present Bush administration "fascist" (and the accusations of wanting to govern by fear, etc.), there remains the strong possibility that the film descends into a dreadful polemic.

In any event, pity they couldn't get it ready by the fifth of November.