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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 748
Released: August 1, 2006 |
| Our Price: $4.17 |
| Used Price: $1.00 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Set against the futuristic landscape of totalitarian Britain, V For Vendetta tells the story of a mild-mannered young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman) who is rescued from a life-and-death situation by a masked man (Hugo Weaving) known only as "V." Incomparably charismatic and ferociously skilled in the art of combat and deception, V ignites a revolution when he urges his fellow citizens to rise up against tyranny and oppression. As Evey uncovers the truth about V's mysterious background, she also discovers the truth about herself - and emerges as his unlikely ally in the culmination of his plan to bring freedom and justice back to a society fraught with cruelty and corruption.
Description of V for Vendetta (Widescreen Edition):
"Remember, remember the fifth of November," for on this day, in 2020, the minds of the masses shall be set free. So says code-name V (Hugo Weaving), a man on a mission to shake society out of its blank complacent stares in the film V for Vendetta. His tactics, however, are a bit revolutionary, to say the least. The world in which V lives is very similar to Orwell's totalitarian dystopia in 1984: after years of various wars, England is now under "big brother" Chancellor Adam Sutler (played by John Hurt, who played Winston Smith in the movie 1984), whose party uses force and fear to run the nation. After they gained power, minorities and political dissenters were rounded up and removed; artistic and unacceptable religious works were confiscated. Cameras and microphones are littered throughout the land, and the people are perpetually sedated through the governmentally controlled media. Taking inspiration from Guy Fawkes, the 17th century co-conspirator of a failed attempt to blow up Parliament on November 5, 1605, V dons a Fawkes mask and costume and sets off to wake the masses by destroying the symbols of their oppressors, literally and figuratively. At the beginning of his vendetta, V rescues Evey (Natalie Portman) from a group of police officers and has her live with him in his underworld lair. It is through their relationship where we learn how V became V, the extremities of the party's corruption, the problems of an oppressive government, V's revenge plot, and his philosophy on how to induce change.
Based on the popular graphic novel by Alan Moore, V for Vendetta's screenplay was written by the Wachowski brothers (of The Matrix fame) and directed by their protégé, James McTeigue. Controversy and criticism followed the film since its inception, from the hyper-stylized use of anarchistic terrorism to overthrow a corrupt government and the blatant jabs at the current U.S. political arena, to graphic novel fans complaining about the reconstruction of Alan Moore's original vision (Moore himself has dismissed the film). Many are valid critiques and opinions, but there's no hiding the message the film is trying to express: Radical and drastic events often need to occur in order to shake people out of their state of indifference in order to bring about real change. Unfortunately, the movie only offers a means with no ends, and those looking for answers may find the film stylish, but a bit empty. --Rob Bracco
Beyond Vendetta
The graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd | 
More by Alan Moore | 
From Graphic Novel to Big Screen |
More by Natalie Portman | 
More by Hugo Weaving | 
More by the Wachowski Brothers |
V for Vendetta (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
Guy Fawkes Day Sci-Fi Wachowski Drama 
2009-11-06 - With the feel of the graphic novel the film looks fantastic and has a story to match. I have watched it 5 times and it feels fresh! 5.1 sound is strong in dolbyhd as pic looks great. Review and screening on the 5th of November on Sony Denon Energy
STOP! GO BACK! ITS 2006
2009-10-20 - Accidentally it happens that an innocent and unsuspecting young woman is abducted by a masked terrorist who holds the nation's capital in his grip. That's it.
And this screenplay was written almost ten years before its release. The Warchawski brothers created THE MATRIX films first. And in them all, Hugo Weaving; quite a step up, here, in my opinion, from those interminable, overwrought English pixie movies in elfin-babble starring Elija Wood and everybody else but him.
No, I don't need to have read any of the Lloyd/Moore graphic novels, I think. There are so many of these masterpieces of literary comics around nowadays, and everybody's doing them. But, a movie is still just a shadowplay. Nevertheless, it is always an event to see John Hurt in anything: The inquisitive First Officer from ALIEN, or THE ELEPHANT MAN, or the distinguished seducer from LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND, or HELLBOY's adoptive earth-father from the movie of the same name, or as the victim/narrator from 1984. That man's got something hardly any actor has; he can absolutely grip you and convince you of what he's doing within five minutes of any story. And you absolutely cannot forget him. Not even remotely attractive, but fascinating.
The movie V has (English) political and even historical overtones, based as it is on Guy Fawkes Day -- that's the annual holiday the English celebrate the attempted destruction of Parliament -- but the dotty Baroness Thatcher is gone, nonetheless, though not forgotten, and Britain is now Labor and the flow of cash out of England to Enron in Texas has ceased. One hopes. But nobody need be aware of any of that on first watching. V is very skillfully written, in that regard, so that whatever might slow things down to political mud wrestling is avoided, and the action is allowed to move at a brisk pace. All the elements of the story; the Dictator and his cronies; the police; the constabulary SWAT goons; the unintended female hostage/victim/accomplice (the sympathetic, winsome Natalie Portman) and her abductor/guru/hero (velvet-voiced Hugo, always in disguise) are in evidence and work as a team to reveal the story as it tightens and coils toward its inevitable end.
V is very easy to watch and understand. Exciting to look at, the story, it seems to me, is a meditation on this proposition: Cromwell liberated England from its Monarch and its aristocracy, but the Parliament, once it was free to do so sold the people to the nobility which has kept them enslaved ever since. The pertinent question is, what a nation would England be were the English people free to work for their benefit alone? And that causes us to wonder what a nation the United States of America would be, were this nation allowed to prosper for the benefit of all its citizens, equally?
Awsome movie!
2009-10-15 - I love everything about this film except the overblown homosexual agenda. I don't take offence to it but I do have some problems with the militant issues implied. This aside, I found it patriotic and moving. Who ARE the terrorists really?
Definatly see this film...Very well done.
blue ray??? 
2009-10-10 - wow. great movie but this copy of the blue ray is far from the quality of anyother blue ray that I own. its seems like a port of a dvd release. horrible qualty. Do not buy this. but the actual movie is great ... phenominal even!
good movie, blu-ray not a big step-up 
2009-10-09 - I personally love this movie and am glad I bought it. However if you already own it on DVD then I wouldn't recommend buying the blu-ray, the quality's not that big of an improvement.
