My Review of "V for Vendetta"

V for Vendetta is a politically charged revenge movie that came out back in 2005. As it talks about general ideology, many of the themes still hit today. I think it hits us harder today because the themes of the movie are pretty much buzz words of today's pop culture climate. At the heart of the movie is a basic revenge movie that takes a lot from the story of The Count of Monte Cristo.

The movie starts out with a retelling of the true story of Guy Fawkes in the 17th century. It's a tragic story about a man trying to blow up parliament in the UK. As a person from North America this is kind of lost on me. I had to do a little digging to really understand the significance of this symbolism. To many people in North America this may also be lost in translation as well. It's not a hugely important to know his story but it does have some important meaning. Basically he's a symbol of rebellion and a general viewer can understand this.

Cut back to the present day which was supposed to depict a dystopian future. In this future UK, it seems that everyone is under surveillance. The US has lost it's power from doing dumb things and the UK seems to be an island of power by itself. There is heavy policing around the country and citizens feel confined.

On one fateful night, our main protagonist Evey is walking to meet someone past the city curfew hours. She's met with what look to be muggers about to violate her. Even worse, these villains are the local authorities. Fortunately for her, her assailants are taken out by a mysterious man simply known as V.

The two quickly make friends, so V takes Evey up a building to show her what he's been up to. V happens to be somewhat of an anarchist looking to make change in the country. His motives will slowly be revealed throughout the movie. He is so secretive that no one ever sees his face.

V's choice of actions are quite extreme but he really believes that this is the only answer considering their situation. Basically Evey is the yin to V's yang. She can't get with his methods but she can't separate herself from his ideals.

There are a lot of huge revenge plots in this movie and it plays in with V's obsession with The Count of Monte Cristo. A man that's been imprisoned only to think his way back to the top to get revenge on his enemies. We get a couple of these with some twists. This movie has a lot of twists that you don't really expect.

It's also a very mature movie. The violence in this movie are quite graphic and visceral. It's not for everyone but it was quite entertaining. This isn't the big emphasis of the movie though. What we are meant to pay attention to are the characters. Each character is built up quite effectively in such short periods of time. Even small side characters even have developed stories. They're all built up to help us understand the damages of what their government has done to its people.

After all of their stories are told I kind of got a bigger story as to why V wears the mask. He is a representative of everyone. They're pretty on the nose about this closer to the end of the movie but it's pretty fun how they do this.

I remember seeing this back in the day when it first came out and was blown away. I didn't think watching it 20 years later I would still be so entertained by this movie. Today it has so much more impact than it had back in those days.

Overall, I had a grand old time with this one. I think if anyone was to check it out today they can see how it parallels today's climate. To think they were so forward thinking with this movie was pretty crazy. I would definitely recommend this movie and I think I need to watch it again. This movie gets an 8 out of 10 from me.