V for huh?

Rating: Null/10 (7 April 2006)

For something the famed Wachowski brothers have made, this film disappointed on many levels. Being the first Wachowski screenplay since the excellent Matrix trilogy, the story jumped around more than Skippy on steroids, and I felt Hugo Weaving's character was wasted behind the mask. More background info on V would've vastly improved this film. The entire torture scene seemed pointless (not to mention long), and the detective's side story concerning the St.Mary's virus was uncomfortably slotted in, and seemed to make no sense until much later in the film. The people's characters seemed to be transported out of Eastenders, and were just frankly annoying to look at whenever they briefly appeared on the screen. I did, however, appreciate Natalie Portman's acting ability (despite her character being plonked in for no reason... why should someone wanting to blow up the Old Bailey randomly save some1 on the street first? He does'not seem to do it ever again...) and the cinematic special effects were decent (but no way as good as the Matrix). It did get me talking about recent politics, as probably was the point, but Mike Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" did that much better too, and that was a couple of years ago.
This film got the idea right, but the execution was completely wrong.