Zorro enters The Matrix

Rating: 3/10 (18 March 2006)

In The Matrix, the Brothers Wachowski combined elements of the technological with elements of the antitechnological, with exciting and interesting results.
In V for Vendetta, the results are... less than interesting.
What we have here is a classic adaptation of /every/ Latin American hero-tale, placed into a sausage maker and focused into one single link. There is a government which is so repressive, so blindly tyrannical, and so often associated with True Evil that it may as well be "The Machines" from the Matrix trilogy, or Sauron's army of Mordor from The Lord of the Rings epic. Against this rises a masked man, once wronged by this government, now committed to its downfall. There is a pretty girl. There is cool swordplay. There is violently over-the-top acting which conjures to mind the campy excesses of Ian McKellan's Richard III.
And then there is a roll of credits.
It is not a difficult movie to understand. There is an Evil. There is a misunderstood Good. And in order to destroy that Evil, the force of Good must perform Evil acts (TERRORISM being the chief modus).
No doubt, this will send into paroxysms of argumentative delight the people who enjoyed Crash, Farenheit 9/11. and other such 'think pieces'. Like those films, I found V for Vendetta to be more of a didactic statement, a monologue, than a movie - and that monologue is about a hair from being a sermon. Many people will enjoy debating how the movie throws into question the 'ethics of terrorism' and the 'necessity of civil disobedience'.
These are all valid, interesting arguments. This movie adds nothing to those arguments; all it does is use them to drive a plot which is otherwise nothing more than THE TALE OF ZORRO. If it were set in Mexico City rather than London...
In The Matrix, there is a science-fiction scenario created where antitechnological actions (Kung Fu, and in later movies swordplay) can be used in tandem, or even in superiority, to more modern weapons (guns, explosives, &c). In V for Vendetta... there is a guy with a mask who throws around daggers and seems to be protected by the Angels of Righteousness and Justice. It is a story set in the future, and yet the hero makes more use of archaic weapons than did even Neo or Trinity.
Entertaining it was, and certainly well-polished and well put together. But it has to be said that The Matrix was a more Believable movie than this - and that, I am afraid, is a sad statement to make about any movie.