'V for Vendetta' is an excellent action thriller with surprising amounts of heart

Rating: 10/10 (25 June 2015)

In the late 1980s, Alan Moore and David Lloyd teamed up to create a graphic novel entitled V for Vendetta, and in the mid-2000s, the novel was made into a film of the same name and released. The strange thing about the film was that it truly did spark the Anonymous movement, with people in the organization wearing Guy Fawkes masks to protect their identities. I became interested in the film because of this, and decided to check it out. What did I think of it? Let's find out.
V for Vendetta follows a anarchist freedom fighter who identifies as V who attempts to stop the United Kingdom's totalitarian regime. A working-class girl named Evie gets involved in V's plans, and soon the two pair up as a detective and the High Chancellor himself give chase to stop their plans to blow up Parliament on the 5th of November.
This film is actually a really good one, which is kind of surprising since I went in with not that high expectations. The acting is fantastic. Hugo Weaving manages to do a stellar job as V, despite we never see his face and the most we see of him is his burned up hands. Natalie Portman does a pretty good job as Evie, managing to portray the character stereotype of the person caught up in something they don't want to do, but it still manages to work out well. Stephen Rea and Rupert Graves both do a great job as the detectives who are trying to find V and Evie.
John Hurt is a fantastic person to watch as the High Chancellor, and manages to portray such an evil role that I was surprised. In most movies that I've seen him in, he's the good guy. But whatever. And of course, Stephen Fry does a fantastically humorous job as Gordon Deitrich, and really brings a level of jokes and humor to part of the film, that I think it really needed. The screenplay written by the Wachowski brothers (or is it siblings now? I don't know), was a great one and especially fit the tone of the film I think everyone involved was going for. The speeches that V gave were very well written and got me really pumped for what the rest of the film was going to bring.to the table.
The cinematography in the film was just amazing and it looked really kind-of post-apocalyptic, even if the world on the outside still looked somewhat normal. The set pieces with the film looked pretty good as well, even though some of them were probably just regular homes in London. The editing was really great as well, especially in scenes like the finale and scenes between V and people trying to attack him.
This ties into the special effects that look great and work very well, much better than I expected them to for a 2006 movie. It's no Bullet Time from The Matrix, but it looks great. The music by composer Dario Marianelli was really great for the times it was used. I say this because most of the movie had other music other than Marianelli's score, but the times when his score was used, it still worked very well.
Overall, V for Vendetta is a fantastic film. The acting, screenplay, cinematography, set design, editing and special effects all look and sound really fantastic. If you haven't seen the film, I definitely recommend it. It's a fun film and a surprisingly heartfelt one, especially towards the end of the film.
10/10 | Grade: A