V For Vendetta (2005) – Review

Directed by James McTeigue

V for Vendetta adapted from Alan Moore’s comic created in the late 80′s is an intelligent adaption of its original. Starring Natalie Portman as ‘Evey Hammond’ and Hugo Weaving as ‘V’. The film is set in the future where there is a dictorship controlled by ‘Chancellor Adam Sutler’, played by John Hurt.

The government is controlling and has put in place censors on many forms of artistic works such as films, art and music that do not comply with government protocol. In this totalitarian environment the figure of ‘V’ is born…

With Alan Moore’s other works such as ‘From Hell’ and ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentleman’ doing not so well both at the box office and from the watchful eye of film critics, the dogs were out on whether ‘V for Vendetta’ would be any sort of improvement. Personally I believe comics and film are two completely different mediums, and because of that the film should be judged on it’s own.

Having now seen the film I’d have to say it was a good film to watch but was flawed in certain areas, which I will touch upon. We all know what accomplished writers the Wachowski Brothers are, but with this V for Vendetta they failed to keep a tight hold on some of the dialogue, especially in key scenes. With the level of detail seen in the Matrix films, I believed they would carry this on in their future films. The second area which I believe let the film down was the direction, this was Director James McTeigue’s directorial debut and some of the acting from the other supoprting actors was questionable.

Having given you my reasons on what let the film down, let me address some of the good points about the V for Vendetta. The CGI, stunts and cinematography are very good and the scenes on London’s Embankment are especially memorable.

It’s taken me a long time to put up this review, simply because I had very high expectations for this film, but not that the review is up, please have a read and tell me what you think of the film.

8/10