Wow! This movie was a lot better than I had expected. Then again, I tried watching Ultraviolet (review to come later) and I was just blown away with how stupid and boring it was. Definitely a must see and one of the better comic made movies that I’ve seen. Not as great as Batman Begins, but pretty high up there. They had pretty much the same motto too: A man can die, but an idea, an idea can live forever.
So the story begins talking about the Gunpowder Plot. There’s a pretty cool chant they used:
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
the gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see of no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
’twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!
A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!
Apparently USA is currently in civil war, but it doesn’t really go into why but only mentions they were faithless. England was under total control of the high chancellor due to fear of the secret police. Many things were banned too (premise of many stories it appears, i.e. Equilibrium). They also had total control of the media.
The 1st encounter between V and Evey (pronounced E-V), V gave a bunch of V-gibberish and it felt like Matrix 3 all over again. Though I think that was probably the only time I didn’t understand what he said.
On November 5th, V destroys a Old Bailey, which used to be the Central Criminal Court, but is just a building nowadays. The media announced the next day the bombing was just scheduled destruction of the building gone off at the wrong time. However, V later infiltrates the TV station (named BTN – I’m guessing British Television Network) and broadcasts a message through the emergency channel stating the truth of the government and that anyone that feels the same way should join him in front of Parliament 1 year from today.
Somewhere along the line, V says, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of its people.” which I thought was a pretty awesome quote.
V brought Evey back to his place after his attack on BTN and didn’t allow her to leave for her and his protection. Evey talks his way out and helps his attack on the high priest. Apparently the high priest is into little girls, which I’m pretty sure was a response from the catholic priests and little boys scandals. During the attack on the high priest, Evey runs away and goes to a friend named Dietrich who apparently is also very against the current goverment and is apparently gay, but being a homosexual is against the law, so he pretends to date girls.
V continues his killings and apparently all of them lead to Larkhill, a detention facility where he lived and was tested on. Apparently he was the only one that survived the virus they were injecting people with and from him, they derived the antibody. Then they released the virus into the their own countrymen and after the current high chancellor was elected, they distributed the cure. What I didn’t get was how the scientist could’ve said this was to better their country… unless she thought the drug was going to be used as an chemical weapon.
Dietrich pulls a stunt on his TV show (which I’m not sure why now of all times), but immediately that night, he gets black-bagged (what the secret police do to make people suddenly disappear). The secret police is led by a guy named Creedy. Evey gets caught and is tortured trying to coerce her to tell whatever she knows about V. She doesn’t, which was weird, and with a little help from some letters she found through the crack, she becomes fearless, even of death. However, I had already guessed who he was as he was always wearing gloves. However, as I’m reviewing the movie, I noticed the guy who cut her here wore transparent gloves and there were not burnt marks. A fluke? or did V just paint his hands? However, it was still shocking that it was V that had held her in prison all this time and actually cut her hair (which I’m guessing is to take everything away from her, including her beautiful hair).
Story continues. V send masks, wig, and a cape to every citizen. Apparently Evey continues to cut her hair (as I dunno how else it could’ve stayed so short). V gets in contact with Creedy and makes a deal with him. In exchange for the high chancellor, he’ll give himself up to him. However, I personally thought he had done it just to capture V, and not really expected him to kill the high chancellor, as the high chancellor would have no reason to kill him once V was caught. Not as smart as I thought he would be. It was also weird he trusted V would let himself be caught, and it was even weirder V didn’t hold his end of the bargain.
The final moment where everyone dressed up as V and came to the Parliament was pretty awesome. Also, as they took off their mask and wig as someone wearing a hat would do when someone respectable/honorable appeared in front of them.
So throughout the movie, V never takes off his mask, so you never really find out who he is unless you IMDb him, at which point it should no longer matter. He was what he was, only a mask, an symbol people will remember for years to come. I was thinking, even if he did end up taking off the mask, we’d probably just see a very burnt face, unable to tell who he originally was.
Another interesting you find out that the V he’s using is actually the number (Roman numeral 5) of the cell he was locked in.
During the random flash of the inspector’s thoughts, there was a scene where Dietrich was smoking and burning something in his trashcan:
which I didn’t really get was happening… He was supposed to be dead at this point.
2 words that were mentioned many times were bollucks and bollixed.
Another thing I was expecting was the detective under the inspector to betray him, since the inspector was starting to doubt the government.
And who could forget that awesome disarming of the bomb. Haha. That was just plain crazy.
