by Ashley Chappell

Created on: January 17, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

I LOVE movies. Anybody who knows me can tell you that I narrate my life cinematically. But even with as much as I rave about the ones I love and those that intrigued me I don't usually engage in writing a movie review. However, I think I'm going to have to finally make an exception and show my true appreciation for the Wachowski brothers.

I watched "V for Vendetta" for possibly the 6th or 7th time and I am still amazed that I find new subtleties that give me an increased appreciation with each viewing. This movie combined a phenomenal screen writing team that was perfectly devoted to detail with a cast that superbly defined the characters they assumed. I have never seen Natalie Portman give a better performance, and Hugo Weaving What more can I say? He's Hugo Weaving! His eloquent voice is so colorful and expressive that he gives his masked character a face you can hear and feel. It would be easy to imagine him in an Elizabethan theater delivering a brand new Shakespearean monologue.

- - - - - Beware: Spoilers ahead! - - - - -

Hugo Weaving plays V, a vigilante who has been irreversibly affected by his government in the course of a medical experiment in the height of war. A new government was rising to power which mimicked Orwell's Oceania in 1984. The Chancellor had commissioned a "Black List" of items in art, music, literature, etc that would have been considered unchristian or subversive similar to Hitler's actions in Nazi controlled Germany. They also controlled the flow of information to the citizens entirely and ensured that the news reported served their purpose only, without regard to accuracy. Just as with Orwell's Ministry of Truth the government realized that propaganda was a means to controlling the population. When a brave few did speak out, however, a darker organization run by Creedy, the Chancellor's right hand muscle, would abduct, torture, and kill those responsible.

Natalie Portman plays Evey Hammond, the femme counterpart to V, who has also been irreparably scarred by the government's actions. Her entire family had been killed and she lived in constant fear of taking the wrong steps. Her desire for change is revealed when she aides V in escaping from the police, thereby unintentionally throwing in her lot with the man people had called "terrorist." One of the scenes that most moved me in the film was the scene following Evey's "breaking" by V where it so beautifully parallels V's fiery rebirth with Evey's baptism by rain. It was at this point

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