V

We've had V for Vendetta at home for about 3 weeks. When we had 3 movies and only time to watch 2, it got pushed to the end of the queue. I guess I was a little nervous about it - would it be too intense?

Not really. It was intense but entertaining. That is the movie's pleasure and its curse.

it is the story of a near future dystopian London, when fears of bio-terrorism have lead to a 1984-like security state with thuggish Fingermen enforcing curfews. Natalie Portman, Evey, is saved from the attention of these Fingermen by a man in a Guy Fawkes mask - V. He delivers a valedictory about vendetta and blows up the Old Bailey.

So Evey, although innocent, becomes implicated in V's terrorist gunpowder plot. This can have very serious consequences, as her political parents were disappeared. The same or worse could happen to her. On the other hand, V is engaged in a campaign of assassination and sabotage - and worse.

Natalie Portman does amazing work here, beautiful and haunted. Hugh Weaving is V, and actually manages to act with a mask on. His oratorical style is classically orotund, which must have been fun.

Now, this hideous dystopia, where civil liberties could be removed at will, indefinite detention and torture are tools of the state and fear and terror rules - it resembles our own time to some degree. And this is what kept me from anticipating the V wholeheartedly. But it really isn't a polemic - it really isn't recommending assassination and terror as a way of dealing with political repression and corruption. It's just entertainment. Just a bit close to real life.