V for Vendetta

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V. "

... so begins the introduction of the character, "V," in V for Vengence. While the actual line in the movie went way above my head (picture right hand snapping in a whip above the top of my head) -- that's probably why I never got into the good schools -- it pretty much says what the movie's about. The movie's chock full of very intriguing elements -- anarchistic historical allusions (Guy Fawkes), Wachowski Brother-brand of action sequences, political philosophy, romance, visual spectacles, awesome soundtrack, and of course, the clever lines -- but while it's a very entertaining movie overall, it never really fails to hit it out of the park in any one of these elements to make it into a "great movie" territory. Nonetheless, being somewhat of a history/political-theory buff, I really enjoyed the whole idea behind the movie and had a great time watching it.

Who will enjoy it: Any Wachowski bothers movie fan (I'm not one of them), history buffs, anarchists-at-heart, fans of superheroes wielding sharp-edged weapons, people who enjoyed X-Men more for the political/social message than the visual effects.

Who won't: Anyone who thought Batman & Robin was the best Batman movie, people squimish about holocaust-like images, fans of gratuitous nudity shots (sorry pals, your favorite Harvard graduate never shows skin in this movie -- go rent Closer).

Other random facts:

The movie poster has this cold-war Russian propaganda art feel to it... really cool.
I never realized that it was Hugo Weaving (known mostly for his portrayal as Agent Smith(s) in the Matrix movie series) playing the character of V... also very cool.