Excellent

Rating: 9/10 (1 April 2006)

To begin with, I hated the Matrix. It felt like I was watching someone play a video game. The action was unrealistic, and I was unable to find any characters that I could identify with. At that point, I hated the Wachowski brothers. Then I went to see V for Vendetta because I'm kind of a comic book geek. I had high hopes, and they were met. In my opinion, one of the best parts was V's soliloquy at the beginning where he seemingly uses the entire "V" section of the dictionary. I was amazed at that feat of script writing. Furthermore, when V fought, it was as realistic as a hero story can get. He was shot, and he bled. He didn't do back flips off walls and stop bullets in midair. He took his shots, and gave them back. The direction of the action scenes was impeccable; I found myself believing them, and I was overjoyed to see that no one fired a pistol one-handed. Then I found out the Wachowski brothers were involved here. I was shocked; I thought they only did vaguely metaphysical schlock for fifteen year olds. This was downright excellent, even if it diverged massively from the source material. There were a few ambiguities, a few characters not explored quite enough, and some times when they tried to make the movie too "recent" for my tastes, but other than that, I was satisfied. I'd end this with the rhyme, but I'm assuming everyone else who like the movie already did.