V FOR VENDETTA is another comic book dark gothic fantasy that Hollywood seems committed to bring to the screen.  Based on Alan Moore’s graphic novel, written by The Martrix’s Wachowski Brothers and directed by THE MARTRIX RELOADED and THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS’ first assistant director, James McTeigue, V FOR VENDETTA has the same outlook as the last two MATRIX movies.  Unfortunately, the feel and effects are so alike.  Can one remember much about the last two MATRIX films?  Most likely not – except for the futuristic sets and CGI photography.

V FOR VENDETTA stars Natalie Portman sporting a British accent and a shaved head and Aussie Hugo Weaving unrecognizable for wearing a Guy Fawkes’ mask and costume.  (For information of non-Brits, Fawkes is the Brit traitor, one of the conspirators involved in the attempt to blow up the House of Parliament on November the 5th, 1605.  Today, the Brits celebrate Guy Fawkes Day with ‘Penny for the Guy’ and bonfires.) The story is set in the future where the U.S. has suffered because of its past and Britain is under control by a fascist government run by Big Brother Adam Sutler (John Hurt).  V is intent to blow up the House of Parliament on November the 5th and Sutler has commissioned his henchman including good-cop Finch (Stephen Rea) to capture him.  Evey (Portman) is the girl V saves and trains to fight fear.  That is as simple as the plot goes, but the Wachowski Brothers and director McTeigue are fond of complicating the narrative by injecting subplots at odd points in the film just as much as the slow and fast motion sequences are meshed together.  The many Shakespearean and biblical quotes do no help in the dialogue but adds to the film’s (which runs over 2 hours) tedium.

Performances by the mostly non-American cast are not bad.  But Weaving cannot do much with his mask and outfit – and the character is reduced to a voiceover of a cartoon.  Sinead Cusack and Rupert Graves are forgettable but Stephen Fry, John Hurt and especially Tim Pigott-Smith as the evil Creedy are memorable.  Like all films of this genre, the cinematography (by the late Adrian Biddle to whom the film is dedicated) is magnificent but that is about all that can be said about this violent and bloody unimaginative flick.  The ending with thousands of Londoners bearing Fawkes’ masks and storming the Parliament building is short of credible.  V FOR VENDETTA was postponed from its original November release due to the London bombings.  It would have made no difference.