V for Vendetta

So I'm a bit torn about "V for Vendetta." It doesn't try to hide the fact that it wants to say something on the way to providing some comic-book sci-fi action entertainment. But the quality of its two faces are, how shall we say it nicely?, varied.

The obvious key to unlocking the thinly vieled moral-political upshot of the film gets repeated a few times in case you miss it: "Artists tell lies in order to reveal the truth; politicians tell lies in order to conceal it." The lie-revealing-the-truth of this bit of "art" has to do with geo-political games played by big business and religious extremists (probably including a certain American President) that oppresses freedom and blah blah blah. And oh, by the way: it's up to Everyone to make things right. (So that this doesn't sound all bad, this upshot isn't really the standard one. For instance, there's a certain level of tolerance for violence as a means to making things right. Kinda strange...) I should stop before I really get going about this...

As for the other face: "V for Vendetta" is a really good comic-book sci-fi action flick. The film had an amazing climactic scene with the Wachowskis' characteristic flair and grace and intensity. There were good performances by Natalie Portman (as Evey), Hugo Weaving (V), Stephen Rea (Inspector Eric Fitch), John Hurt (Chancellor Adam Sutler), and pretty much everyone else. And the primary characters were dynamic enough to keep me interested in their plight. That is to say, I enjoyed watching the film, and probably would have enjoyed it all the more had it been on a big screen.

Timmy's Review: B