MenZa’s Weblog

I just finished watching V For Vendetta for the second time, and I’m just as amazed and impressed as I was the first time.
This movie is so good, I decided I would make an exception of my hatred of writing reviews. Yes, it really is that good.

However, I will have you warned: I am no review writer, and I fill my reviews with personal opinions and bias, which you can either choose to accept, or not click the link to the review below. I jump around in various parts of the film as I please, and I comment on things as I see fit, and as I think of them.
I will also warn you that this review will be filled with spoilers, and will most likely ruin the film for people who have not seen it. Note, you can still skip to page three and read my conclusion of the film.

V For Vendetta is a wonderful film, which can only remind us of the greed and power-craze of our governments today, and stand as a warning to us and future generations.

Let’s get on with it

The first time I heard of V For Vendetta was from reading back in April, but I had never heard of the film before that, and it was never really highlighted as much as various other films.

To tell you the truth, I was never really interested in watching this film. However, one bored afternoon came and I decided to lend the movie from my older brother.

I was immediately captivated: I knew nothing of the film, and was quite excited when I first saw Guido Fawkes in the cellars of Parliament, ready to set off his hundreds of barrels of gunpowder.

I will admit, I got slightly disappointed when the camera changed its focus, painting the picture of two official-looking middle-aged men, whom I was to learn were with the London Police.

The year is sometime in the 21st Century. The world is in ruins—civil war has erupted in the United States, and the people of the United Kingdom are being suppressed by the government, led by the socialist party Norsefire. A party with no inhibitions when it comes to keeping down its opponents, which are virtually non-existent.
The party is led by High Chancellor Adam Sutler, played by Sir John Hurt, whom I must say plays his part extremely well.

In 2015 Norsefire release a deadly virus on a school, in a tube station and in a water cleansing facility, ending up killing a near 100,000 people, spreading fear in the population.
Shortly after, anti-venom is distributed in capsules developed by a company funded by several prominent Norsefire party members.

The first things that come to mind when observing the ways and methods of Norsefire, are Nineteen Eighty-Four, communism and Ingsoc.
These thoughts go with you throughout the film, and they shape your thoughts on this 21st Century London.

The main character of the movie is Evey Hammond, played by Natalie Portman, who runs into a masked man who calls himself V. He saves her from being raped by “fingermen”, the MI5 of the time.
She runs into him at the BTN—British Television Network, Norsefire’s main propaganda tool—where she saves him from being captured, after attempting to bomb the transmission tower, where he manages to send a bulletin to the citizens of London, asking them to meet him at Parliament a year later at the date of the Gunpowder Plot—a bulletin sent to every house in London.

Evey is knocked out cold, and V brings her to his hideout, where she is instructed to stay for a year, until his plan to bomb Parliament has been executed.
She refuses, and ends up running away to her boss, television host Gordon Deitrich.
Gordon is captured and shot for possessing a Qu’ran, an article forbidden by Norsefire, and Evey is yet again forced to run away.

She, too, is captured and imprisoned, with the promise that she if she doesn’t hand over the whereabouts or identity of V, she will be shot.
She refuses and becomes the victim of torture and interrogation. One day, she finds a letter left by a woman who calls herself Valerie, who tells Evey about her life.
She falls in love with a girl her own age when she is still in school. A passing phase, her teacher says. This is true for her girlfriend, but not her, who later comes out to her parents with her then girlfriend Christina.
Her parents will know nothing of it, and she is thrown out.
Valerie and her lover are later imprisoned by Norsefire, who sees homosexuality as a crime punishable by death.

When Evey refuses to tell them about the location of V, she is told that she is to be shot. She accepts her apparent fate, and is suddenly told she is free to go. The moment she leaves her cell, she finds herself in the comfort of V’s den.

It turns out this was a trick by V, who was determined to test her mentality.
Evey leaves V’s hideout and only returns once more, on November 5th. Here, she and V leave for the London Underground, which has been sealed off since the 2015 epidemic.
V tells Evey he has one final surprise and gift for her. It’s a train filled with explosives and fertiliser. He declares that she—not he— is the one who must decide whether to start the train and let it ride underneath Parliament before blowing it to pieces, or to leave the matter. Like he says, The choice to pull this lever is not mine to make, because this world… the world that I am a part of, and the one I helped shape, will end tonight. And tomorrow, a different world will begin, that different people will shape. And this choice belongs to them.

In exchange for Chancellor Sutler, V hands himself over to Peter Creedy, head of the fingermen. Wearing a breastplace, V mercilessly kills all of Creedy’s men, then Creedy himself. However, V is mortally injured and returns to Evey, who is still sitting at the train, with its nose pointed directly at the base of Parliament.

V dies in Evey’s arms, and he is positioned in the train. Evey pulls the lever, and the train rides swiftly to Parliament, blowing it to shreds with hundreds of thousands of Londoners watching the show, wearing Guy Fawkes masks, wigs, hats and capes. The very same worn by V.

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