V FOR VENDETTA

Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, John Hurt, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry

"Remember, remember the 5th of November"

I have been staring at this screen for a couple of hours now to come up with a review for this spectacular film. No, it isn't a sign that I didn't like the movie. On the contrary it totally blew me away, I loved it. Yet somehow I am having difficulty articulating my thoughts. So I will just talk out loud and you can eavesdrop while I talk to myself, ok?

Natalie Portman as Evey Hammond had a wickedly grand English accent plus she was willing to go bald for her role, whoa how bold of her!
The articulate masked crusader/champion of the masses known simply as "V" and his vast knowledge of the arts, literature and music makes him a fascinating character to flesh out. Hugo Weaving as "V" is excellent. Of course, he is never seen but his artistic talent to pull off such a demanding role in very evident. A role that needs him to be handy with knives. Chirp out tongue twisting lines. Quote prose and poetry with eloquence. Try to appear cool in an all black outfit with a silly grin permanently pasted on his Guy Fawkes mask and a cape to boot. He succeeded perfectly.
A megalomaniac leader holding the entire population captive to his idea of a controlled state is of course such a cliche but he does make a hell of a very bad guy.

Stephen Rea as chief Inspector Finch is plausible as a character torn between his duty to uphold the law and justice and his gnawing notion that the government he vowed to serve is the real culprit in the crimes.
I chuckled everytime the mighty US is continuously referred to as 'in the former USA' - a country shown as battling a civil war, a raging mayhem of total anarchy and chaos.
The statement that 'people shouldn't be afraid of its government, government should be afraid of its people' made me ponder and go hmm.
Oh and amidst the violence, the terror and the portrayal of a controlled nation whose populace is gripped by fear, paranoia and are desanitized to the real horrors that its government perpetuates on them, a subdued context of a love story blooms between the two central characters.

So this isn't entirely a film based on a comics book character who was obsessed with vengeance as the title implies. It conveys a reflection of what the world might develop into in the distant future. But unfortunately in some parts of the world right now, this reign of terror is a harsh reality. Now that's a scary thought, don't you think so? Eerie in the sense that art (in this case, a comics book) should imitate life not the other way around.

End of conversation.

Time to sleep.