V for Vendetta (2006)

Verily, I can only think of a few remakes that have been better than the original - 1941's The Maltese Falcon, 2006's The Departed, and 2007's Hairspray spring immediately to mind. Even sparser, though, are movies better than the source material (books, most voraciously) on which they are based. In fact, only one rests at the forefront of my consciousness.

Here is unveiled V for Vendetta. Director James McTeigue did a valorous job vindicating Alan Moore's eponymous graphic visitation now envisioned as a profoundly first-rate political thriller that vociferates considerably less voraciously than Moore's original vista.

What if Orwell's vision of 1984 vandalized England? That's the vicious venality that 2038 London finds itself enlivening, villified with an iron fist by venal Norsefire High Chancellor Adam Sutler (John Hurt, verminously filling in for Big Brother - and Bush-era America? The vote is yours...). Vivified by sheeple-by-vocation like Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman - more on this casting later), England needs only a victor to shake them out of their stupor. That virtuous vigilante comes in the form of mysterious anarchist V (voiced by Hugo Weaving, of The Matrix fame, verbally expelling a delightful vichyssoise of verbiage), whose visage is cloaked with a vacant Guy Fawkes mask. Victor or villain? This vox populi dares to vindicate the votives of those who seek freedom in England once again.

My vocation being to review filmic visions the very better to aid your volitions, I vow to keep this vade mecum very far from verbose and shall continue to limit my verbiage to a vocabulary less than verbose. A vixen in her own right, Ms. Portman should not find herself the victim of a vicious villification; inded, her performance is virtuous - some might say commendable, though this vexes my otherwise vocabulary-based symmetry. Envision if you will a twenty-something British bon vivant, vitiated by a violating vermin! The verdict is that Keira Knightley ought have played Evey, though one must admire Portman's vitiation of vanity and emotive weeping as her head is shaved. On repeat viewings, one can more fully approve of Portman's vocation as an actress as the initial vice of not casting Knightley is removed from attention.

As an improvement on Moore's work, V for Vendetta unvexes a previously muddled and thinly veiled derivative of 1984, in which the protagonist was vigilant yet unconvincingly vocalized. Though Moore's ambiguous version of Adrian Veidt in his undisputed marvel Watchmen was enviable, V is less than convincing, part vigilante and part villain. Here the vanguard of liberation is given fair shrift, defending his land with vim and vigor. Ambiguity thrives in literature, yet sloppy ambiguation proves most vincible in analysis.

More vindicating than vindictive, McTeigue's version of V for Vendetta vehemently strives for victory in the celluloid realm, and as comic books go this re-envisioning of a predominantly virtueless work of a visionary soars. View it if you can, and remain vigilant. Because "a revolution without dancing is a revolution... not worth having."