V for Vendetta, is without a doubt, a fine film. I didn’t quite get the big controversy on it, nor did I get that it was preaching a pro terrorist message either. V is considered a terrorist by a Naziesque government, and nothing more. The movie sharply contrasts, who is the bad guys and the good guys. But what it neglects is the bigger psychological question of the slippery slope that V walks. While he enacts a vendetta against those who have wronged him and his ‘people’, he ends up killing lots of innocents along the way as a seemingly trifle causality. This he most likely believes will be made right by ensuring he is dead by the end of the film. But is this morally right? It is very 1984. Another film, and book, which I adore. But in fact, I don’t get it as a warning of what our nation currently faces; but what it could face. And what it could be. I see it as an interesting look at a modern setting of Nazi Germany; and at times, am strongly reminded of the American War of Independance. Perhaps that’s because of V’s good taste in music. 
V’s character himself draws on Shakespeare and Phantom of the Opera in the very capable hands of Hugo Weaving. Evy, I have problems with. She’s at times too shallow..her motivations aren’t entirely clear…and Portman does not have the best fake British accent in the world. It comes off slow and snippy. At some point she’s the poster girl for stupidity. We can all tell it’s Hugo Weaving standing there without a mask on in one scene; but why can’t she?
In the end it boils down to a love story; and the movie is scattered away from it’s original message by that aspect. While Hugo Weaving does an excellent job, as the Phantom of the Opera character; torn between his calling to be a man of the underworld, and wanting to take off his mask and reveal his feeling to her; Portman is so emotionally empty it leaves this aspect with nothing to work with but cheese. V shows his pain that he can’t show Evy… because he feels not only that she would be repulsed by his disfigurement, but that she is only in love with his mystery. What on earth does he see in this woman?
I liked the fact that the Wachowski’s added many philosophical aspects to the film, and placed many homages to the Matrix. Despite it’s flaws, it’s a good film.
***1/2 stars.
