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V for Vendetta
Warner Bros.


7.6

based on 39 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 364 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for strong violence and some language

Starring Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt, Tim Pigott-Smith, Rupert Graves, and Roger Allam

Set against the futuristic landscape of totalitarian Britain, V for Vendetta tells the story of a mild-mannered young woman named Evey (Portman) who is rescued from a life-and-death situation by a masked man (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. (Warner Bros.)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Drama \| Sci-fi \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Andy Wachowski Larry Wachowski Alan Moore (characters) David Lloyd (characters)
DIRECTED BY:	James McTeigue
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 1, 2006 Theatrical: March 17, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	132 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / Germany

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Premiere Glenn Kenny

A compelling, rousing and at times strangely moving entertainment.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Richly satisfying entertainment the way movies are at their best, when they prod you to think.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

V for Vendetta puts its ideological intent first, and happens to provide smashing entertainment only as a vehicle for delivering its message.

Time Richard Corliss

It's a terrific movie. I love the look and the verve of the thing, the confidence of its epic design, its smart use of half a dozen noted British thesps, lending weight and wit to the supporting roles.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The explosive V for Vendetta is powered by ideas that are not computer-generated. It's something rare in Teflon Hollywood: a movie that sticks with you.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

An entertaining piece of pulp fiction.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

V for Vendetta represents 2006's first memorable motion picture - a visually sumptuous concoction that combines political allegory, bloody action, and a few stunning cinematic moments into a solid piece of entertainment.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Portman doesn't catch fire until the second half, then heaves herself into emotional action; this suits her initially passive, mostly unthinking character. Weaving, who acts entirely with his voice, is V's ideal embodiment: witty, rueful, pitiless, visionary and mad.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Visually exhilarating, provocative and disturbing.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The Wachowski Brothers once again they prove themselves our reigning masters of murk.

Empire Dan Jolin

Setting out more to challenge us with its ideas than make us whoop at the action, Vendetta can be clumsy, but there are enough impressive flourishes to make up for its stumblings.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It's the perfect moment for the ridiculous but riotously enjoyable revolutionary comic-book thriller V for Vendetta-which will doubtless outrage conservatives and unnerve fuddy-duddys but liberate the rest of us with its magisterial irresponsibility.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

One of the most eloquent tales in ages of dysfunctional love – between a man and his ideals, between a country and its government, and, in the end, between Evey and V.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

With most action thrillers based on graphic novels, we simply watch the sound and light show. V for Vendetta, directed by James McTeigue, almost always has something going on that is actually interesting, inviting us to decode the character and plot and apply the message where we will.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A lot of dark, Orwellian fun.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Even if V for Vendetta isn't nearly as incendiary as it's been made out to be by some alarmist critics, there's still something enjoyably subversive about it, beginning with the way it tramples over the conventions of the contemporary action film.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Hugo Weaving, weaving deftly beneath a fixed plastic grin and Prince Valiant wig as the mysterious avenger in V for Vendetta, both chills and amuses throughout this enjoyable - if occasionally irresponsible - comic-book thriller.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

First-time director James McTeigue's big, bold imagery, with slashing reds and blacks, is a close approximation of the novel's look and feel.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Mostly, it's content to remain a compelling, visually striking political mystery with some big ideas woven into it--subversive notions about integrity, liberty, and political change.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

As a fix of pop iconography, V for Vendetta is eyeball grabbing, even if it lacks the relentless videogame bravura that sold the Matrix films. As a movie, however, it's merely okay, with a pivotal dramatic weakness: Evey, for all the attentions of her revolutionary Svengali, remains, in essence, a bystander, and Portman, her head shaved, plays her like Joan of Arc as a tremulous Girl Scout.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Brutally gorgeous and seething with incendiary images.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

From a fan's perspective, though, one might wish for a smaller budget and a truly uncompromising vision.

The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore

Viewers expecting a thrill ride might be disappointed. V engages in a couple of satisfying crime-fighting set pieces, but the story is more occupied with mystery and intrigue. Happily, it almost is entirely free of the hollow pomposity that marred the Wachowskis' last two "Matrix" films.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The swashbuckling first hour is superior to the second, which bursts at the seams with backstory, but a rousing climax makes this the most potent piece of agitpop in years.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

With its emphasis on dialogue and political machinations over explosions and kung fu fighting, it remains to be see whether or not V for Vendetta will actually find one (a wider audience).

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's the strangest comic-book superhero movie you're likely to see this year. For anyone looking for something totally different in this most overworked of Hollywood genres, this is it.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

V for very, very ordinary.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The real villain is a cowed and lazy citizenry. Meaning all of us. Disappointingly, V for Vendetta makes this point early and moves on, at some point turning as shallow as what it protests against.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Finally, a film to unite movie-mad members of Al Qaeda with your neighbor's kid, the one with the crush on Natalie Portman.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

By the time you've gotten through it, you feel spent, loaded down and more than a little disoriented. Part of the problem is that the movie's big concepts - violence begets violence, absolute power corrupts absolutely, everything is connected, my terrorist is your freedom fighter, etc. - are pithy, brief and irrefutable enough to embroider on throw pillows.

Variety Leslie Felperin

Suffers from many of same problems as last two installments of producers Andy and Larry Wachowski's "Matrix" franchise: indigestible dialogue, pacing difficulties and too much pseudo-philosophical info.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Absorbing even in its incoherence,V for Vendetta manages to make an old popular mythology new. Impossible not to break into a grin: It's the thought that counts.

Newsweek Jeff Giles

The movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia. It references "America's war," uses imagery direct from Abu Ghraib and contains dialogue likely to offend anyone who's not, say, a suicide bomber.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The more valid question is how anyone who isn't 14 or under could possibly mistake a corporate bread-and-circus entertainment like this for something subversive. You want radical? Wait for the next Claire Denis film.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Both oversimplifies and overcomplicates Moore's and Lloyd's vision, but it never cuts to the bone. It's a movie drawn with big, bold strokes and very little feeling -- a tracing-paper exercise masquerading as a masterpiece.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The film is beset by incoherence and implausibilities that are perplexing, given the close relationship between the Wachowskis and the director, Mr. McTeigue.

The New Yorker David Denby

The quarter-century-old disgruntled fantasies of two English comic-book artists, amplified by a powerful movie company, and ambushed by history, wind up yielding a disastrous muddle.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

V for Vendetta is a dud - far too long at nearly two and a half hours, with flat, grungy visuals, choppy editing and no sense of urgency. But as a political work, it's something else - heavy-handed, reactionary and flat-out stupid. (For the record, Moore has publicly distanced himself from the film, saying it bears precious little resemblance to his original creation.)

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A piece of pulp claptrap; it has no insights whatsoever into totalitarian psychology and always settles for the cheesiest kinds of demagoguery and harangue as its emblems of evil. They say they want a revolution? Then give us a revolution, one that's believable, frightening, heroic, coherent and not a teenagers' freaky power trip.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 364 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

L D gave it a10:
You people are crazy. Whether some people believe it or not, movies affect and move people. When I get done watching what I believe to be a great movie, I get a great feeling after watching it. And that's what I felt after this one. One of the best stories I've seen out of Hollywood so far. LOVE IT!

Edward D. gave it a10:
This film is the best that I have ever laid my eyes on. I have seen it over 16 times and i could still see it more. It includes violence, blood shed, action, romance and yet retains it British touch of class. V the main character choses to use words over weapons and uses weapons only to insure his words get through to his audience. But brilliantly this movie differs to the stereotypical category that super hero films seem unable to claw it way out of. But the first time I watched this movie I thought, why the hell didn't I get to see his face. But this movie dose not show its main characters face. It leaves an opening for the audience to create there idea of "V" and his physical appearance. Every time I watch this movie I love it even more. The fact that you fo not even see the main characters face is a testament to it differentialness from any other hero film. This movie also manages to turn an evil terrorist "V" and tells his story so poetically that you feel how he feels, you see what I see" and yes that was a line from the film. Also the use of words in this movie is perfect. The way that every single speech has been carved into a perfect statue that represents his anger and disobedience against this extreme right wing political party. Those are the reasons for why I love V for Vendetta so much, that I would be willing to defend it to the hill and keep my conscious clean.

John M. gave it a7:
A deeply flawed yet deeply beautiful movie. Its reach exceeds its grasp, and only scratches the surface of the problems, principles and conundrums it purports to engage with, but as a stirring visual poem on our occasional responsibility to be irresponsible, it satisfies and stirs. Don't expect to be challenged, but don't expect to be talked down to either. Personally I'm glad to see a story such as this given the pop culture treatment, and mercifully lose relatively little. The dialogue leaves much to be desired, but V's monologues are superb, and Weaving's ability to connect from behind a mask is commendable. My only real objection is that the Beautiful Lesbian Love Story gets ten glorious minutes, while the male-on-male Mapplethorpe pictures get all of three seconds from an obscure angle :) (Also, anyone who makes kneejerk references to this as "liberal, leftist" propaganda clearly doesn't know what either of those words mean, and would probably be the perfect constituent for the movie's dictator!).

Danger B. gave it a10:
Love this movie. I suspect all the people that hated it get their news from Limbaugh and O'Riley.

Janmik S. gave it a9:
Very very impressive. Takes note of deeper issues unlike the other plotless, cutaneous movies that resort to overused plot devices.

Mark D. gave it a10:
Acting, plot, and story are excellent. Ending tops it off perfectly. Couldn't have asked for more...

Jason D gave it a2:
A waste of time. Tries too many directions at once: arthouse, action entertainment, and moral message. Without any clear direction it failed to make sense or even entertain. I can give up the money for a rental, but I felt robbed of my time.

V for Vendetta Warner Bros.

V for Vendetta
Warner Bros.