Here, he's gay and hides himself through having pretty young women like her over to his house, as the regime persecutes gays.
Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In the comic V had subverted the government's central computer years ago, which was why he could so easily run rings around their security and knew everything about them.
She is taken to his Elaborate Underground Base, and, although scared by V at first, she decides to join his campaign to bring down the Government, replacing it with an anarchist society.
The fact that Guy Fawkes was arrested for trying to blow up the king has something to do with it, of course.Įvey Hammond ( Natalie Portman), who works at a TV channel, is rescued from rapist policemen by V, and this act of kindness starts the film. He is The Faceless throughout the film, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask in order to conceal his true identity. Armed with extraordinary intellect and fighting skills, along with some home-made high explosives, he escapes from the facility that created him and sets about committing terrorist attacks against the fascist government of Britain. The title character is V ( Hugo Weaving), a government experiment Gone Horribly Wrong. If it had been called V for Vasectomy I could scarcely have found it a less enjoyable experience, so please don't let your curiosity get the better of you when it arrives down your way.V for Vendetta is a 2006 film directed by James McTeigue and written and produced by The Wachowskis, based on the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
Throw in Matrix veteran James McTeigue's flat direction and you have a woeful, depressing failure. Despite postponing the release date from last November to allow more time for post-production work, the film looks cheap and lacks any sense of time or place. Around her, a cast of notable and familiar talents such as John Hurt and Stephen Ray stand little chance amid the wreckage of the Wachowski siblings' dismal script and its particularly poor dialogue.Īnd unlike so many fantasy adventure films, the visuals don't offer any compensation for the shortcomings of the screenplay. It's a notion which is perfectly acceptable in a comic book, and deadly on film.Īs the heroine, Natalie Portman just isn't up to the task, failing in even the most basic requirements of the role, such as providing a consistent and credible accent.
For a start, Hugo Weaving is given an impossible task in playing a hero who spends the entire film behind a full face mask, and is therefore incapable of visual expression. And trust me, that's the least of the problems for this film, which is misconceived from opening titles to end credits. The Prime Minister of the day was busy giving the country the smack of firm government and there was little effective opposition to be seen and 1984 was just around the corner.įast forward to 2006 and for all the complaints about the nanny state, that resonance has ebbed away. Though I believe the original comic to be a little over-rated, it certainly had a topical edge when it appeared in the early 1980s. In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that I come to V for Vendetta with a background that could be described as 'informed' (or as 'geeky' by those who fail to appreciate the ways in which an obsessive interest in comic books can enrich the life of even the most well-rounded individual).