Zorro meets 1984 meets Macbeth

Rating: 9/10 (12 April 2007)

Great cinematography, moving performances, a crackling script that takes you on an emotional and intellectual roller-coaster ride - rarely does a film manage to hold up a mirror to the age and entertain so magnificently at the same time. Shame on the award-givers for passing this over. England (certainly not Britain, as England here seems to have gone UDI on the rest of the UK) presented as a totalitarian state has engendered comparisons with Orwell's 1984, but this is much more akin to Animal Farm; it is a parable of the consequences of human failing and inaction on a societal scale, and the possibility of redemption for an individual. The filmmakers make brave choices - let the dialogue race ahead, don't ever show what is behind the mask. Is it churlish to point out one or two missed beats? Stephen Fry's character worked too hard to disguise his true nature, and was too canny in his dealings with the regime, to not realise the repercussions that would ensue from his satirical TV sketch. That episode served merely to propel Evey back to V. The resurrection of some characters for the mass discarding of the masks at the end was also a little bit too Brechtian for my tastes. Not perfect then, but damn close. V for Vendetta will move you to tears and make you ponder just how much England has really 'progressed' since 1605. England prevails?