V

Dreams are weird. Last night, I found myself parachuting into the Middle East, then achieving peace between the Israelis and Palestinians by organizing a dance-off on ice in the Kellands School gym hall. Later on that night I had a dream. I can't remember what it was.

Anyway, Whitney and I went to see V for Vendetta yesterday. The first thing that struck me was Hugo Weaving's voice, which sounded closer to Legion from Red Dwarf than the Agent Smith-alike that I was expecting. After The Matrix you'd expect him to be even more hopelessly typecast than Alan Rickman, but it certainly isn't the case here. They must have use a hammer and chisel to unglue his teeth from each other. And I see stubbleupdate's point that his introductory speech is just unbelievable.

Speaking of the Wachowskis' magnum opus, I was also impressed by the way that they didn't turn this film into a bullet-time extravaganza, even though they're pretty much the only ones capable of doing so convincingly. Instead, there was only one scene near the end (which is pretty spectacular) where everything slows down.

It is also one of the last films in which I was expecting to see a Benny Hill chase (the others in that category being, I don't know, Schindler's List and Gone with the Wind). And it's rather frightening to see Britain as a totalitarian nation, especially as they kept the futuristic environment believable.