England Prevails!

Rating: 10/10 (5 March 2011)

Alan Moore and David Lloyd wrote this as a graphic novel from 1982 to 1989. The decade of the 2000's was the decade were the Graphic Novel emerged onto the big screen with films like "300", "Watchmen", and "X-men III: The Last Stand" which was based on The Phoenix Saga graphic novel by Marvel. Of all the graphic novels made to film, "V for Vendetta" flawlessly captures the cinematography created in the graphic novel art, even more so than "Watchmen". The Wachowski Brothers and director James McTeigue recreated the graphic novel as a film depicting a grim, bleak future where England has been manipulated into a reactionary government. The underlying message of course is "Beware" - It could happen in the "Ulcered Sphincter of Ass-Erica" as the character in the film played by Roger Allam - "Prothero", calls the USA ("Prothero" is probably a play on the name "Prospero" - as this film has a lot of references to Shakespeare in it).
Natalie Portman and veteran Hugo Weaving spearhead a great cast which includes John Hurt ("Sutter"), Stephen Rea ("Finch"), and Stephen Fry ("Dietrich" - Fry most recently plays Mycroft Holmes in the 2nd Robert Downey Jr. 'Sherlock Holmes" film and also the Cheshire cat voice in 'Alice in Wonderland")- The rest of the cast include Jeremy Iron Spouse Sinéad Cusack, Natasha Wightman, Rupert Graves, Tim Piggot-Smith.
As we never see Weavings face in this entire film, we depend on his rich voice to develop the character of "V". Portman begins her "Evey" (E-V) role as a cipher, but the character was given more substance and personality in this treatment- Alan Moore vied to have his name removed from this film, just like he did for Watchmen.
There is one moment in the film where Rea has a revelation of connection, the filmmaker uses this as an opportunity to collect all the discordant plot elements and merges them all together for the viewer. This is probably the finest moment in the film, the music very powerful.
"V"'s Jukebox contains songs by Julie London, and Cat Power- Kind of an odd combination but it works in this film.