It's good, but it's not great.

Rating: 8/10 (10 September 2006)

I love sci-fi films. And I also love films that depict a utopian fantasy society, or dystopian rundown waterhole. I lump these into two different categories. Utopian society films are usually films where everything seems to be great, but when in actuality there is something very wrong. The public enjoys great health and luxury, but behind the facade the public is being oppressed. Examples like Equilibrium, Rollerball and Brazil come to mind.
Dystopian films usually depict a society where everything is just outright wrong, but freedom still exists. The world is, pretty much, a crap hole in either a very literal sense or for the people who live there. The world makes no attempt to cover up the fact that it is a crap hole, and the people don't really seem to mind either. Here we have Blade Runner and Gattaca.
The V for Vendetta film falls into the former category, but I wonder if you wouldn't put the comic book in the later category? In the film everything is to black and white. The good guys is too much of a good guy, the bad guy is an over-the-top bad guy and clichés are numerous.
If you just watch the film without prior knowledge about the comic book, you won't really care. But if you've read the comic book and know what it could have been, you'll realize that there could have been so much more to this film and a lot of it's faults are exposed. Stylistically this film is very good, but plot wise it's... not so good.
We've seen all of this before. A revolutionary fighting to bring down the corrupt oppressive society, where a dictator rules supreme. The twist is that this revolutionary is using modern day terrorist tactics, involving murder and bombings to further his cause. But since the film depicts him as very much of a good guy, his motives are never really questioned by the audience, like they SHOULD be. He's a good guy fighting for justice and revenge, what's not to like? Well, the problem is that we've seen this before. To many times, perhaps. The mere fact that he's using drastic measures isn't enough to make us dislike him.
And the bad guy? Well, compared to him, our good guy revolutionary looks like Jesus himself. This makes the film a bit dull, because we can all pretty much pinpoint exactly how the plot is going to develop from scene 1 and in the end we're right.
Now, the film is very well made. It's very stylistic and builds up quite nicely. If you like these kind of films, you'll like this one. The acting is great, the visuals fantastic and the atmosphere likewise. But the plot is lacking, and there's nothing really unique about this film.
So I suggest you watch this film if you're interested in this theme. But don't fool yourself, there are a lot of films out there on the same subject that are better. Including all of those I mentioned in the first two paragraphs.
6/10