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'Vendetta' scores a V for valiant effort

Students of English history know Guy Fawkes as the man who almost blew up Parliament in 1605, but was thwarted and hanged for treason. "V for Vendetta" makes you wonder if maybe all he lacked was a great costumer and cool fight choreography.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'V for Vendetta' 3 out of 5 stars Director: James McTeigue Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt Run time: 132 minutes Release date: March 17, 2006 Rating: R for strong violence and some language. See showtimes Behind the scenes •  What's with the mask? •  Departures from the book •  Natalie Portman speaks out •  Other memorable Portman performances On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'V for Vendetta'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

The film by first-time feature director James McTeigue (first assistant director for the "Matrix" trilogy) takes us a few decades into the future, where Great Britain is an Orwellian dystopia, the strongest national survivor of a war that mostly wiped out the West. But dictator Adam Sutler's (John Hurt, coming full circle from his role as timid Winston Smith in "1984") police-enforced calm splinters after a Guy Fawkes' Day bombing by a masked terrorist code-named "V" ("The Matrix's" Hugo Weaving). V is out for revenge on high-ranking party officials, but flashing stilettos and chop-socky aside, V's real danger lies in his challenge to the citizens: Meet me outside Parliament in one year to finish what Fawkes started.

V wins a reluctant ally in Evey (Natalie Portman), a young woman haunted by her past and what it implies for her future. Sporting a working-class accent and fearful brown eyes, Portman is the equal of her role, and her brutal transformation from waif to woman stops short of easy Hollywood heroism, instead placing her at the cusp of using violence to oppose violence. Weaving, although he spends the entire movie behind V's iconic white mask, lets his distinctive baritone swoop and soar over lines that threaten to capsize the film with pretentious weight.

It's a credit to McTeigue that he works sly, self-deprecating humor in between the monologues: In one late-movie scene, Stephen Rea's ("The Crying Game") Chief Inspector Finch ends his vast, wordy vision of big-T "Truth" by admitting, "It was only a feeling."

The speeches (courtesy of screenwriters Andy and Larry Wachowski), slogans and comic book villains (the movie is based on a 1980s graphic novel) don't cover much new ethical ground, so in the end the movie does little more than ask, "Do the ends justify the means?" McTeigue might not win an unqualified "V" for "victory," but he definitely scores a "valiant effort."