V For Vendetta (movie)

Mesmerising comicbook adaptation from the Wachowski brothers, (and directed by James McTeigue) which flatly rejects standard Hollywood templates and does its own thing. It's wonderful to watch a film in which the characters, like real life, actually have a creative free will beyond the simple choices that a two-dimensional movie-character might normally have.

One character who never even appears gets a whole ten-minute back-story. That's not following any formula. About thirty minutes in I glanced at the clock and realised that I had no idea what might have taken place in this breakneck plot in an hour's time.

The hero – the eponymous V - is a terrorist, but not one who's painted with such easy to judge strokes. In fact, his face remains hidden throughout, forcing us to to weigh him up on his words and actions.

V: "Evey, please. There is a face beneath this mask but it's not me. I'm no more that face than I am the muscles beneath it or the bones beneath them."

Yup, that sounds like the Wachowskis.

Over one year, V and his new friend Evey struggle to evade the totalitarian government's advances upon them, whilst quietly sowing the seeds of widespread public rebellion.

The totalitarian government in question is the UK of the future, in a dismally recognisable society which looks just like our one, but thanks to the American production style also feels uncomfortably different. I was particularly impressed with the vision of the media in a few decades' time – still churning out propaganda, but to an apathetic public who are now so aware of it, that they have actually become used to it.

V: "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

This is a society in which the general populus live in a box, under the illusion of freedom.

How disturbingly familiar.

Terrific, thought-provoking film.