A real audience divider, the still controversial V For Vendetta demands a second assessment. 'Brought to you by the creators of The Matrix' (James McTeigue, the Wachowski brothers' assistant director), it's the stylish tale of V (Hugo Weaving - not that you can tell behind the grinning china mask), a cloaked, charismatically verbose anarchist with a female sidekick (Natalie Portman) and glinting blades, whose tactics are inspired by Guy Fawkes. Drawn from Alan Moore's brilliant anti-Thatcherite graphic novel and set in a dystopian London, this intriguingly flawed comic book adaptation is certainly an intellectual cut above the average. But the main trouble is that the floppy fight scenes can't balance V's wordy diatribes on sexual/artistic/religious freedom. A little less talk, a little more (Matrix-standard) action is unarguably required.
