Winston Churchill Flashes No V Sign Here "V For Vendettal **1/2

Rating: 6/10 (20 May 2007)

2018 and England is in the midst of a dictatorship by a crackpot who has brought death to 100,000 people by unleashing a virus and then blaming a dissident group for doing this.
Natalie Portman, a gifted actress, stars in this mess. The film has a good premise with a totalitarian regime in England while the U.S. is having a civil war. It soon falls apart as the bodies begin to pile up. The man with the mask begins to bring revenge on all those who concocted the virus.
The film is even a little bit silly and the ending is totally ridiculous.
There is one good performance and that is by John Hurt as the lunatic ruler. Stephen Rea, who was so good in "The Crying Game," plays a police officer who is trying to capture the terrorist with the mask.
Portman looks like she has boozed, drugged and been through the mill. Unwittingly, she becomes an accessory to the masked man. When she denounces him, he imprisons her and then releases her. Along the way, we find out that her young brother was a victim of the virus and her parents were executed for their anti-government activities.
Stop with the nonsense. Too much of the film is all so predictable. I upped the rating to **1/2 because of the premise of the film, but that's about it.