In a not too distant future, England has become a totalitarian state run by Chancellor Sutler (Hurt), with only lone terrorist V (Weaving) willing to take a stand for freedom. Forever hidden behind a manically grinning Guy Fawkes mask, V patrols the curfew-controlled streets, rescuing fair maidens and wreaking havoc upon government buildings. When he rescues Evey (Portman) from an attack, V takes her to his underground lair where he tells her about his plans to bring down the government - and as Evey learns more of V's troubled past, she learns a lot about herself and joins the fight for freedom and justice.
The two Matrix sequels showed that the Wachowski brothers have an unerring talent to lose the run of themselves, and here they have failed to learn their lesson and seem to have taken on the hero's anarchic mantra into the script; the fact that they write whatever the hell they want and disregard any rules and principles for film may cause some to whoop for joy at the departure from conventional story telling, but it just doesn't work. The graphic novel on which this was based was a comment on Thatcher's Britain but the Wachowskis update it to include Iraq and the Muslim/Christian issue - and if this less than subtle subtext was trickling through the first half hour, it drowns everyone before the halfway mark.
Where it tries for sincerity it ends with silliness and where it tries for heroic, it ends in camp (if Stephen Fry wasn't playing another character, some would be forgiven for thinking that it was him under the mask). V For Vendetta is a messy madness from start (V's opening monologue laden with the letter 'v' was a poor mistake) to finish, but there are some standout moments - the city besieged with millions of people wearing Guy Fawkes masks, and Natalie Portman in a 'lollipop' costume.
Don't let the trailers fool you: it's not all slow-motion high-kicks-and-knives action sequences (they tot up to about a minute's screen time) because it's not an 'action' flick but a very, very wordy revenge/political/ satire/conspiracy thriller.