Movie Review: V. For Vendetta

Tania says:
We skipped ahead in our list to watch this movie because we bought it forever ago and never watched it. I never wanted to watch it. It was always thrown out as a – “Hey we still haven’t watched V for Vendetta!” And I always vetoed it. I wish I hadn’t been so deadest against it. It was something completely different then I thought it would be and I LOVED it! Seriously, we have a lot of comic book movies on this list thus far and this was my favorite. It may be because it was such a surprise and so totally different then I thought but whatever the reason it was really good.

The movie is set in England and takes place in the future when the US is in shambles and the government of England is pretty much in control. The government runs England with a scary right-wing religious hand and the population of the country is pretty much a slave to this government. We meet Evey who works for the only tv station in the country. In the beginning of the film she is on the street after curfew and meets V – a radical who wants to take down the oppressive British government. The story goes on from there as Evey gets more entangled with V.

I was not prepared at all for the commentary on government and the Big Brother is watching concept. I had no idea what this movie was about – maybe I should have done some research. This was less of an action film (which is what I thought it would be) and more of a thriller loaded with social commentary. The story is way more interesting then I gave it credit for.

Natalie Portman does a fine job as Evey except her accent blows. Hugo Weaving is awesome as V and all the other supporting cast does a good job. I highly recommend this movie and urge you to go into it with an open mind and maybe it will surprise you in a good way like it did for me!

Josh says:
I'm somewhat familiar with the work of Alan Moore. When I heard that the Wachowski's were going to be working on a movie version of one of his books (I hadn't read this one) I was excited and nervous. I mean, how can you know for sure whether you're going to get The Matrix or one of the lame sequels?

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While it's certainly not The Matrix, it's a very good second best movie by this occasionally visionary team. They didn't direct this one but their fingerprints were all over it and in only the best ways. Sadly, that's about all that I can say about this movie without degenerating into a political diatribe that nobody wants to hear.