Embrace Your Inner Rebel

Rating: 9/10 (18 March 2006)

If you've ever suppressed your opinion in order to be "part of the group", this film will speak to you as it illustrates the attrocity of having someone enforce their way of life on others. Minorities should always beware of powerful institutions that set the one and only standard and force total conformity, because one day, those institutions could make it very uncomfortable for you to remain different.
The film succeeds in capturing every element of Alan Moore's masterpiece, but the change in medium from Underground Comic Book to the Big Screen does not go without a price. In order to broaden its audience to mass appeal, the film grapples at times with its own issues and becomes uneven. Brilliantly subtle in places through the use of language and symbolism, it then shifts gears and hammers home its message with deafening explosions to ensure the whole audience is on the same page. Fittingly, violence hungry fans seeking Matrix-level action may relate more with the goons that make the story's dictatorship regime possible.
And what are the themes...
Vigilante justice. Corruption at the highest levels of power. The grey line between freedom fighters and terrorists. And the courage to defy what you know is wrong, even when the odds seem overwhelming.
Watch this movie but then hold your tongue, you wouldn't want to be singled out for special treatment... ;)