Do the ends justify the means? That's the question of V For Vendetta, which shows us a dark future where America is destroyed and a fascist regime has taken over England. Out of the oppression rises a masked revolutionary, V, who promises to bring back freedom.
Produced by, and with, a script from the brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski (creators of the Matrix trilogy), and directed by their longtime collaborator James McTeigue, V For Vendetta is probably the most subversive movie to open at #1 at the box office in a good while. It sacrifices some of the intentions of Alan Moore, who wrote the original graphic novel it's based on back in the 1980s, but it still keeps a lot of that seminal work's ideas. Beautifully shot and executed, it's trying to be more than just another action flick.
Moore has disowned the movie, which is a bit of a shame, because it's by far the best of his works made a film. (His name doesn't even get mentioned in the credits, which even though I know it's his fervent wish, feels a bit wrong to me – the man did come up with 90% of the movie's ideas, after all.) This is no League of Extraordinary Gentlemen abomination – it hits most of the graphic novel's plot points, and feels sincere, striving to be a bit more than your typical action blockbuster. It takes superhero-movie cliches, such as saving the damsel in distress, and twists them in interesting directions — what if the guy who saves the girl is also totally insane?
The Wachowskis and McTeigue have taken Moore and artist David Lloyd's grim fantasia spawned from 1980s Thatcherism (with more than a dash of 1984 and A Clockwork Orange) and updated it well for modern times. V for Vendetta feels timely and raw in a way it wouldn't have in the Clinton years. There's clear parallels to the Bush/Blair war on Iraq, and the questions about how far a population will let fear push them.
Natalie Portman is excellent as Evey Hammond, who goes from shy bystander to co-revolutionary under V's tutelage. Portman is a fine actress whenever she's not in a George Lucas movie, and her work here – from wallflower to catharsis – is heartbreaking. She plays off Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith in The Matrix), or rather, Weaving's voice, which is all you ever get from the masked V. Weaving wrings a lot out of a character that doesn't even have moving lips, and is a verbose, vivid force of nature as the vicious V.
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