Remember...no reason for this lousy plot.

Rating: 4/10 (3 April 2006)

Remember, remember the fifth of November and no reason for this lousy plot..
I'll say one thing for this turkey...it made me want to read the graphic novel to find out what really transpired. When driving on a wet road you look out for pot holes. With this movie you can't avoid the plot holes.
I assume that if one accepts the movie's ending of the ending of the right-wing Christian dictatorship (what a crock that is...the last and only one was in Byzantium six centuries ago, and the thought of a "Christian dictatorship coming to England, much less than to the United States, is silly)that those left on the ground, removing their masks (I guess to start picking the new anti-totalitarian atheist government)would somehow escape the anarchy that would ensue, assuming that the falling of Parliament would have a different effect from the toppling of the Twin Towers. What would happen would be the military stepping in to restore "order." I mean these people aren't going to go into lines to form a new government ("All you people who want to be the new High Chancellor please line up here.") Even The Shadow had people who helped him catch the bad guy.
Our masked boy speaks in soft, sibilant tones to all he meets, and then dispatches them to the Hereafter bloodily, as with the the TV guy, or by lethal injection. And, while wanting to put the government out of our misery, doesn't mind some collateral damage along the way.
The USA, is portrayed as a leper colony (why?) and later we see video of civil war in the Heartland. So why did the British need a Baptist dictator? The scene is one not at all removed from England today, people watching the telly, having drinks together..we even see families glued to their TV sets, and one scene that looks like a retirement home..but do these people give an indication of dissatisfaction with their lives? The movie doesn't indicate this. No, V is on his own here and can only resort to a string of assassinations and two glorious bombings. We never are taken into Parliament to see if that body is still deliberating; and if it was closed down by the dictator, why bomb it, other than the Guy Fawkes thing?
It is obvious reading the comments from people who have read the novel that this movie and the book are not, to use a phrase...on the same page. It would not be beyond the realm of reason to have the masked populace show up and lynch V so they could go about their one passion, it seems, of watching dartboard contests in Huddersfield, and come and go as they please as long as they don't wander out after dark without their IDs.