One of the amusing aspects regarding the huffy press response to V for Vendetta is receiving lessons in maturity from movie critics, hitherto unknown for being the custodians of what constitutes intellectual adulthood. In The New Yorker, David Denby speculated that the movie would appeal partially to "aging kids," and Magnolia Darkness of the NY Times expressed faux astonishment that anyone over the age of 14 would find the movie "subversive." If it's radical you want, She decreed, wait for the next Claire Denis movie. I'm not sure what the next Claire Denis movie is slated to be, but it must be pretty rad. Until then, I'm going to monitor myself at future movie screenings to ensure that my responses are age-appropriate and befitting of my status, income level, and cultural sophistication.
That way I won't succumb to the sort of wild abandon for the film on whirling display here.
One brief note. I do think Alan Moore's noisy, widely publicized repudiation of the movie may have hurt the opening weekend's box office. There have been a couple of times in the past when a novelist has trashed an adaptation of his/her work the week before the film's release, and helped poison the atmosphere and muddy the critical reception. New York magazine used to be a favored landing strip for this sort of bitter kiss-of-death kiss-off article. I understand the bitterness but as a viewer I have to go by what's up on screen.
