V for Vendetta (2006)

All Critics (238) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (173) | Rotten (65) | DVD (41)

Speaking of love, things go blooey instead of gooey whenever heroine and hero come close enough to touch; far from being sensual, let alone erotic, the movie proves to be not much fun at all.

April 14, 2013 Full Review

Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journal

Top Critic

This is just darkness played bright, a disposable object but hardly objectionable.

April 14, 2013 Full Review

Rick Groen

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

The dark and stylized V for Vendetta is visually exhilarating, provocative and disturbing.

April 14, 2013 Full Review

Claudia Puig

USA Today

Top Critic

Just when we were ready to give up mainstream movies as braindead,along comes the controversial and gleefully subversive V for Vendetta, a piece of corporate-sponsored art that will have audiences rooting for a bomb-throwing anarchist.

April 14, 2013 Full Review

Lou Lumenick

New York Post

Top Critic

Whether you're mindless or Mensa, you'll find stuff here to challenge and trouble you, the way a good piece of speculative fiction should.

January 22, 2013 Full Review

Richard Corliss

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

By the movie's midpoint, the Wachowski brothers' screenplay has gotten so bogged down in back story that it takes 40 minutes for director James McTiegue to get back to the explosions that his 16-year-old target audience assumes will solve everything.

October 18, 2008 Full Review | Comments (25)

Bob Mondello

NPR.org

Top Critic

In its ambition to weld a political message onto a comic-book movie it falls rather pitifully between two stools.

August 26, 2010 Full Review | Comments (3)

Anthony Quinn

Independent

In adapting Moore's sprawling narrative into a workable screenplay, the Wachowski Brothers have come up with a balance of thoughtful philosophy and all-out action that feels more natural and organic than it did in their Matrix films.

August 23, 2010 Full Review | Comments (2)

Peter Sobczynski

eFilmCritic.com

Alan Moore may be greatest victim of Hollywood's comic book adaptation craze.

July 6, 2010 Full Review | Comments (4)

Eric Kohn

Reverse Shot

Daredevil in agitator garb

August 30, 2009 Full Review | Comments (14)

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

You have to really credit Hugo Weaving for pulling in a strong performance, helping to carry the film over his back, and never really reveal his face.

April 29, 2009 Full Review | Comments (2)

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

Moore and Lloyd posed this paradigm in a Cold War era and it never came to pass. Leave it to the Wachowski Brothers to update it for the War on Terror, or rather its aftermath.

April 23, 2009 Full Review | Comments (2)

Peter Keough

Boston Phoenix

Better than the original comic. Seriously.

February 27, 2009 Full Review | Comments (7)

Devin Faraci

CHUD

V for Vendetta is a milestone. Maybe not a big marker, but a milestone nonetheless.It is anti-establishment redux.

February 2, 2009 Full Review | Comments (3)

Tony Macklin

tonymacklin.net

Forget the faux accent, it's the raw emotion [Portman] displays, especially in the film's latter stages, that's positively Streep-like and most captivating.

November 20, 2008 Full Review | Comment (1)

Brian Marder

Hollywood.com

Contentious, pretentious but with a great last 20 minutes.

October 14, 2008 Full Review | Comment (1)

Matthew De Abaitua

Film4

The details of V's beef with society are hazy, but the film has a certain purity of spirit.

June 8, 2008 Full Review

Robert Davis

Paste Magazine

Major studio pictures can certainly be more creative, but they're rarely as bold as this.

January 15, 2008 Full Review

Garth Franklin

Dark Horizons

blends modern-day politics with good old-fashioned derring-do to explore the grey areas (in a very grey-looking London) between freedom, justice, dissidence and retribution.

August 10, 2007 Full Review | Comment (1)

Anton Bitel

Eye for Film

When the script sticks close to Alan Moore, it works best. Which, sadly, is seldom.

July 23, 2007 Full Review | Comments (2)

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

• 1. V: A man after my own heart.
  – Submitted by Lucas B (33 days ago)
• 1. V: There are no coincidences, only the illusion of coincidences.
  – Submitted by Victor T (38 days ago)
• 1. V: People should not be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of their people.
  – Submitted by NiKa N (5 months ago)
• 1. V: The only verdict is vengeance a vendetta.
  – Submitted by Uzair S (6 months ago)
• 1. V: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
  – Submitted by Erald P (6 months ago)
• 1. Evey: No one will ever forget that night and what it meant for this country. But I will never forget the man and what he meant to me.
  – Submitted by Ingrid G (6 months ago)