V for Very good.

Rating: 8/10 (11 December 2006)

Hugo Weaving plays an anarchic anti-hero with a flair for the dramatic, trying his best to embody an ideal and a fearless identity that can be assumed and passed on by everyone in the country.
Oh, the country is a strictly regimented place that has abused civil rights for many years after setting up stunts that keep the citizens fearful and docile . . . . . . . sounds eerily familiar to anyone ?
Natalie Portman plays a young girl take under the wing of a killer . . . . . oh no, wait, that's Leon. She plays a young, important female who has to make some difficult choices for the benefit of many others . . . .oh no, wait, that's the Star Wars prequels. Okay, okay, she plays both of those characters in one and does so with a fairly decent English accent. And a bald head for the latter half of the movie (and I still totally would).
Stephen Fry, perhaps not as well known to many outside the UK, does great in a role that I hope (and am sure he does too) parallels how he would love to continue to rally against any oppressive establishment if given the position and choices.
And it's an ironic pleasure to see John Hurt, once so unkindly treated by Big Brother in 1984, becoming Big Brother in this tale of totalitarianism, anarchy and, well, fireworks.
People have complained about the ideology here and many have said that the Wachowskis try to have their bread and eat it but I thought that everything was very well done, many interesting and frightening comparisons to our society were made and I appreciated the fact that when order becomes SO repressive as to be harmful then chaos must be used to get things back to a starting point for . . . a new order once more. And I LOVED the mask.
It's a great movie with some fine moments but I can see why people expecting a standard action movie would be disappointed. For me, the food for thought was just as enjoyable as the "whoah, cool" knife moments.