V For Vendetta (2005)
Director:
James McTeigue
Writers:
Andy Wachowski (screenplay) (as The Wachowski Brothers) , Lana Wachowski (screenplay) (as The Wachowski Brothers)
Stars:
Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Rupert Graves
Concocted by the same team behind the "Matrix" franchise, "V for Vendetta," a future-shock story about a masked avenger at war with a totalitarian British regime, was drawn along the usual Orwellian lines but is clearly meant to have more than a passing resemblance to our current political environment. The story originated as a limited comic series in the early 1980's. Like the comic, the film is set in a near future, though now the time stamp is circa 2020. America, glimpsed only in passing on television, is paralyzed by civil unrest, and Britain has fallen to fascism. One night after curfew, a young woman, Evey (Natalie Portman), is saved from an assault by a man in a Guy Fawkes mask who introduces himself as V (Hugo Weaving, wasted under his costume). V slices and dices Evey's troubles away, topping off his handiwork first by reciting some vacuous verse and then by blowing up the Old Bailey. She's perplexed, but like any impressionable youngster with daddy issues and no money for therapy, she's also interested. One thing leads to another and a minor league of extraordinary soul mates is born. Like the last two installments of the "Matrix" cycle, this film sags when it should zip, weighted down with self-importance and some dubious thinking.
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 DVD, $9.99 (https://www.zeusdvds.com/v-for-vendetta-2005-dvd/))
