"V for Vendetta" movie review

Pretty sweet movie. Now, I've never read the comic that it was based on, nor even knew that it was based on a comic until the DC Comics logo came up in the opening credits, so I can't say if the movie did it justice or not. But I would assume it did a pretty good job.

The movie was written by the guys who wrote the Matrix trilogy and the plot is a little reminiscent of it, although much more of a Brave New World theme that's been used so often in this genre. There are some pretty sweet fight scenes, but mostly these are over quickly and the movie relies on the story, the actors and the set design to really carry it. That being said, Natalie Portman and Stephen Rea do an incredible job as two of the leads in the movie. Hugo Weaving plays the main character, and does a great job with his voice, but his face is behind the Guy Fawkes mask the entire time so the voice is the only performance you really get.

"People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people."

The plot of the movie is basically a tyrannical oppressive government in the not too near future of England and a revolutionary bent on revenge who's goal is to bring down the government and wake the people up to what they have been tolerating all of these years. It's well written and well executed, and a definitely entertaining movie. It is, however, quite dark, so if that's not you're thing, you probably won't be too big of a fan.

Let's go with an 8 out of 10.


On a side note, the mask that V wears in the movie is a Guy Fawkes mask. Guy Fawkes was an Englishman who, in 1605, tried to blow up Parliament & King James I, but was caught before he was able. On Nov 5th (the day in which he was caught) there is now a celebration in the UK in which they burn bonfires and dummies of Guy Fawkes to celebrate his failure. Years ago they would also tie up live cats inside the dummies to mimic the scream of a person getting burned alive, but they don't do that any more. Probably thanks to PETA.