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Review:
 A
generation ago, Alan Moore began a graphic novel illustrated by
his friend David Lloyd that was to be an allegory about the
Thatcher years in Great Britian. The comic was a hit, and then it
was forgotten by all but Moore's fans, among whom were the
Wachowski bothers, who would later bring us the “Matrix films.
They would buy the rights from DC comics, and Alan Moore would
never forgive them. His name is nowhere to be found in the
credits.
One of the reasons is that the future years envisioned in the
comic has already come and gone and the Wachowskis have set it
into a slightly different era, from a Thatcher dictatorship to a
post-9/11 dystopia where the US has lost the war on terror and
collapsed into civil war. In Britian, the monarchy has collapsed
and has been replaced by the demonic dictatorship of
Arch-Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt) who only appears on TV
nowadays.
The film begins with our heroine, Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman)
breaking curfew to keep a date with her boss, comedian/talkshow
host Gordon Deitrich(Stephen Fry), but the secret police have
caught her and are threatening rape, when a mysterious figure
calling himself V(Hugo Weaving), intervenes, and invites her to a
party of sorts. Ka-BOOM!!! a bit of London blows up.
V is a comic book super-villain in a world with no heroes. He's
just as bad as the government, who's as evil as they come. The
backstory is revealed slowly as V goes around killing important
people and detective inspector Finch(Stephen Rea) repeatedly fails
to uncover who V really is. This film is entirely about politics,
basically the politics of revenge and what happens when a people
give up their freedom.
The acting is terrific. Weaving manages to give a great
performance from behind a mask, and Portman can do pretty much
anything when given a chance to do it. Rea has the world-weary cop
down pat, and the villain-villians running the government(Roger
Allam, Tim Pigott-Smith, John Standing and some others) have done
there homework by watching those old WWII movies and listening to
Rush Limbaugh tapes.
This isn't the “Matrix” by any means, although there are
references to it. It is worth the bucks for a ticket, however.
Eric Lurio
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