A big fat dose of "who cares..."

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2006)

{sarcasm}Wow, V bursts onto the scene with an impressive display of alliteration, clearly we should all bow down to his superior mind and delight in the mysteries of his astounding intellect for the duration of this movie....{/sarcasm}
I don't even know what this movie is really about. Melodramatic Shakespearean wannabees waxing philosophical about destroying the evil empire comes to mind... But the real point of this thing is lost in its over-wrought stylings that take the brilliant idea of revolution in all its forms, and dumb it down to something akin to fourth graders rioting on the playground.
Film in general is such a strange medium, it can be dominated by words, or dominated by slick imagery, either way it can still work as an enjoyable film. This movie on the other hand manages to have both too many words, and too much style. Not that it really has too much of either, its just such thoughtless superficial style and words. Its the stereotype of comic books, lots of pretty pictures, and lots of stupid words that add up to nothing. It's really no wonder that Allan Moore, an intelligent writer who is far above this kind of tripe, has completely disowned the movie version of his smartly written graphic novel.
In the end I don't think I really understood what the point of the movie was. I think its about revolution, but it comes across to me almost anti-revolution. For one it makes revolution into a form of revenge, and no true revolution is about revenge. Revolutions come from basic ideas concerning the human condition. There is no evidence of that in this movie. This movie turns revolution into a philosophical diatribe that would make the most angry anti-establishment types wince. Revolution is first and foremost, practical, particularly violent revolution, and trust me, nothing about this film is practical.
I really genuinely wonder why the hell filmmakers even bother basing movies on books. They rarely even try to stay true to the story, they always let their own egos mutate it into something that ultimately bears similarities in name and nothing else. STOP MAKING MOVIES ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVE NO INTENTION OF EVEN REMOTELY FOLLOWING.
Aside from all those failings there are some cool action scenes. Say what you will about the action scenes they were superbly well done and pretty entertaining. The rest of it essentially worthless. It gets a five out of ten from me because at the very least most of what went on LOOKED nice.