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James McTeigue

Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving

Near future England is the setting for this science fiction saga about a masked revolutionary intent on overthrowing a fascist regime.

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Interrogator: I am instructed to inform you that you have been convicted by special tribunal and that unless you are ready to offer your cooperation you are to be executed. Do you understand what I'm telling you?

Evey Hammond: Yes.

Interrogator: Are you ready to cooperate?

Evey Hammond: No.

Defiance is the theme of this provocative film, adapted from Alan Moore’s landmark graphic novel set in the near future of dystopian fascist Britain. Instead of pursuing crooks, the masked  V rescues banned art, assassinates torturers, hijacks broadcasts, blows up buildings, and plays a lot of loud music to bring down the one-man rule of the bigoted Adam Sutler. 

Evey Hammond, the offspring of two disappeared activists, is irrevocably drawn into V’s orbit after he rescues her from brutal cops.  Hugo Weaving as V is surprisingly sympathetic given that he performs behind a constantly grinning Guy Fawkes mask, John Hurt plays Sutler with despicable brio, and Stephen Rea (The Crying Game) is typically excellent as the dogged cop who pursues V while carefully concealing his loathing for the authorities he protects. 

Natalie Portman depicts Evey’s gradual transformation from timid bystander to politically aware accomplice with chilling determination. V for Vendetta has the over-the-top imagery and fight scenes expected in a superhero film, but it also packs an astonishing moral punch and, like the revolutions of our daydreams, comes to a thunderously rousing  and satisfying conclusion .