Don't waste your time -- or your $$$!!

Rating: 1/10 (25 March 2006)

If you enjoyed Alan Moore and David Lloyd's graphic novel from 1988 -- as I did -- do yourself a favor and avoid this pale rendition. Alan Moore has disassociated himself from this film, and with good reason. A few of the character names are the same, and a couple of sequences bear a slight resemblance -- but that's it. The fire, the passion, the heart and soul that so infused the novel is completely absent. The screen story was already written, and the filmmakers ignored it, rewriting whole scenes, cutting out others, eliminating a good 75% of the story's power, meaning and resonance. The characters are shallow, empty husks of their original selves, and the pacing is abominable. Nowhere in this superficial yawnfest is the true understanding of revolution made manifest. Nowhere is the audience truly brought in to and made a part of V's tormented motivations or Evey's harrowing journey. That would require some creative camera lingering, and sets that didn't look like sound stages. If this had been made 15 years ago -- as a mini-series -- perhaps some of the gritty integrity and enduring strength of the human spirit might have been retained.
Shame that it ended up in the hands of overpaid incompetents.