Monkey Man shouldn’t be compared to John Wick (but it should be compared to V for Vendetta)

Spoilers for Monkey Man and V for Vendetta. They’re both excellent movies, so watch them.

In her video on Monkey Man, Yhara Zayd pointed out that it is rare for these types of revenge movies to get political. And that got me thinking it really wasn’t that much like John Wick and was more like V for Vendetta.

John Wick’s vengeance is purely personal (individualist and non-political).

Whereas Kid (Dev Patel) and V (Hugo Weaving) fight back for what happened to them and on behalf of others who have been targeted by the systems of oppression (the caste system and fascism, respectively), and in both movies, these characters are labelled terrorists.

They also both don masks. V wears a Guy Fawkes mask to embody what the historical figure stood for, and Kid wears a monkey mask to honour the legend of Hanuman, who fought against the gods after they took his powers. These aren’t just for aesthetics; the movies mirror the events and figures they reference.

Curiously, both movies include the topic of injustice done to LGBTQ+ communities.

Whenever V kills his Norsefire victims, he gives them a rose in memory of a lesbian named Valerie who had her life destroyed, her lover…