Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Thus narrates actress Natalie Portman, still somewhat fresh from the concluding entry of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Revenge of the Sith, in playing her star-making role of Padmé Amidala, as the central character Evey in V for Vendetta released the year after in 2006, based on Alan Moore's comic of the same name. The opening focuses on Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic Jesuit who is executed for the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to obliterate the House of Lords and simultaneously execute regicide against King James I of England and is in turn executed for his involvement. The film erroneously states the plan was to destroy the House of Commons, but this is otherwise a negligible flaw only historians will notice in an otherwise solid movie.
In the near future, Great Britain is ruled by the neofascist and totalitarian Norsefire political party, headed by High Chancellor Adam Sutler (whose original last name in the limited comic series was Susan, but it was changed to parallel with Adolf Hitler, a change definitely for the far better), which wants to conquer the world including the "Ulcerous Sphincter of Ass-erica" (I would add an 'm' where the hyphen is in my case to make it sound better) with allusions to the Boston Tea Party in disposing of goods the good ol' USA sends the Brits. This, alongside a certain alliterative scene between the sophisticated titular character V, portrayed by Matrix and Lord of the Rings actor Hugo Weaving, with Evey, provide decent comic relief.
Vendetta provides backstory on how Norsefire came into power in the first place, with Evey's backstory elaborated on and the media controlling the minds of the ignorant masses (which still rings true in the world today), with V occasionally blowing iconic London landmarks accompanied by the iconic finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Overall, the film is definitely bucket-list worthy and could be considered something of a spiritual sequel to George Orwell's 1984, although the main message "People shouldn't be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of the people" is unforgivably absent from the movie itself. Even though creator Alan Moore refused to watch the comic series' adaptation and refused royalties, I still think the film has excellent transideological appeal, has aged very well, and will always be relevant.
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| The Bottom Line | |
| A bucket-list film regardless of your ideology. Watch it. | |
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