The other Moore's law

I'm slightly curious about V For Vendetta, the forthcoming film from the Watchowski Brothers. Despite my disappointment with Matrix Revolutions, I'm willing to forgive them a misstep or two - The first Matrix buys them that much at least.

What else makes V worth paying attention to? Well, it's an adaptation of a comic book. With the increasing number of comic book adaptations hitting the screen it's become increasingly trendy for those in the know to sneer at the term "comic". Everyone knows they're graphic novels these days, they sigh condescendingly. The truth, however, is that in the medium only a relatively small proportion of the industry's output is deserving of a such a categorisation. One thing for certain, though, is that you can pretty much guarantee that anything from the pen of Alan Moore will be worthy. Moore in this case being the original author of V For Vendetta.

It's difficult to underestimate Moore's importance in the medium. Along with a small handful of others he's shaped and reshaped the industry. His Watchmen will be forever held up as an example of what can be achieved through the melding of words and pictures, and his story telling skills are sublime. His dabblings in the more 4 colour world of DC comics gave us some of the finest Superman tales ever told, but his output has stretched far beyond those familiar shores.

Unfortunately the comics world seems to have it's very own Moore's law, which states that the brilliance of Moore's work is directly proportional to the stupidity of any film adaptation that follows. Classic examples of this include Swamp Thing, the appalling League Of Extraordinary Gentleman, Constantine and From Hell (the latter two weren't necessarily bad films, but given how much each varied from the source material they were probably wastes of their respective licences). The League in particular turned a intelligent and thoughtful pulp pastiche into a gobsmackingly moronic action adventure. Moore's take on these has been philosophical for the most part - he's content with the money and the fact that his original works remain untainted.

Still, when I discovered that Moore was taking action against the producers of V for Vendetta I became curious as to just how bad the film could be. The strange thing is that, having watched the trailer, this actually doesn't look too bad. It's difficult to say from the trailer alone whether it will manage to capture the spirit of the book, but it looks like it's heading in the right direction both visually and in terms of the plot. Admittedly it's been a long time since I've read the book. V for Vendetta is one of Moore's early work, but no worse for that. Set in a dystopian Britain ruled by an Orwellian government, it's tells the tale of girl who's escapes persecution by falling into the clutches of a masked terrorist, known only as V. Their relationship is the crux of the film and I have my doubts about how well it will translate. What I remember most of the book is it's emotional impact - Evey, the protagonist, is put through hell, and Moore takes the reader down to the depths with her. It's unpleasant, uncompromising, yet intelligent and engrossing. Will the film capture this? Probably not. But even if Sturgeon's law holds sway once more, it still means we're due a decent Alan Moore adaptation eventually.