"V for Vendetta" Directed by: James McTeigue

Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt, Stephen Fry

MPAA rating: R (adult language, bloodshed and violence)

Running time: 131 minutes Best suited for: anarchists Least suited for: complacent conservatives

Somewhere in the near future, the United States lies in ruin, caught in the grip of civil war. Much of the world has been destroyed. Great Britain has managed to escape the carnage, but a new government has emerged. High Chancellor Adam Sutler (John Hurt) has curtailed civil liberties, ordered curfews and is holding seemingly complacent British citizens under his totalitarian thumb in the guise of "what's good for them." The price of stability in the near future is personal liberty.

"V for Vendetta" is the silver screen's most recent graphicnovel conversion-a British import whose basic premise is this: anarchy has its virtues. "Vendetta" tells the tale of Evey (Natalie Portman), the young, apolitical daughter of radical parents who disappeared during a civil uprising a decade before. Her brother also died during the chaos and, despite her grieving and sorrow, Evey doesn't have the fortitude to continue their cause. She's representative of the collective English consciousness: yes, things are bad, but they could be worse. So she lives her life in tolerant ignorance, obeying the rules and keeping out of trouble.

But Evey slips out one night after curfew and is accosted by three "fingermen"-members of a Gestapo-like police force who are little more than governmentsanctioned street hoodlums. Just when Evey's fate seems lost, an eloquent masked man donning a black cape and a multitude of concealed blades appears.

This nameless benefactor dispatches Evey's attackers, explaining that he's intolerant of government tyranny and that it is time- almost-for the revolution. Evey's rescue is caught by a surveillance camera and now she's sought as the masked man's accomplice.

"Vendetta" is a moody, futuristic poli-sci fable, the fantasy offspring of "Darkman" and "Zorro," with a good bit of Orwell's "1984" thrown into the mix. Its political agenda is balanced by measured amounts of kung-fu swordplay and antiestablishmental rhetoric-not to imply that either is a bad thing, mind you, just that "Vendetta's" story line is overtly simplistic. Evey's protector, the masked man she eventually calls V, has a single-minded mission to destroy Parliament. It's a symbolic gesture, an act of subversion to be undertaken on the 5th of November (a significant date to English anarchists) in hopes of jumpstarting the compliant masses into action against the High Chancellor's wicked regime.

V remarks to Evey how symbolic it might be that a single building toppled can motivate the masses, can be a formidable call to action. I don't know about you, but I made the immediate, uncomfortable connection to the World Trade Center. "V's" creator, Alan Moore, seems an unlikely U.S. proponent, and the film's writers/ producers-the "Matrix" trilogy's Wachowski brothers-have upped the anarchist's ante by keeping the horror at easily identifiable levels. Numerous innuendos during the film belittle Britain's puppetlike submission to America's political dominance. In fact, "Vendetta" implies that the U.S. has all been destroyed by a war begun in the Mideast-the resulting biological carnage having reduced much of the globe to ruin. (WMDs? But whose, I wonder.)

"Vendetta's" sinister uncertainty works very well for the first hour or so. There's an aura of impending doom, nicely offset by Portman's girlish, submissive Evey. Even the appearance of the cheery-masked V lends an unbalanced yet fascinating thrill to the premise. For a while Evey believes him mad, and we're not quite certain of his sanity either. V is played, by the way, by an unseen, soft-spoken Hugo Weaving ("The Matrix's"Agent Smith), who quotes Shakespeare and favors v-word alliterations to punctuate his displeasure with things.

The film tends to get preachy here and there (remember "Matrix II"?), although the dialogue manages to retain both eloquence and edginess. Its biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that "Vendetta" strokes its world in uncompromising blacks and whites. The High Chancellor is so evil, his government so corrupt, the people so oblivious, that V's efforts (sane or otherwise) seem no less than extraordinarily noble. Even the tactics he uses-unusually harsh in certain cases-seem just and righteous. Yet by eliminating any gray area between abject good and horrendous evil, the film loses its ability to subtly sway viewpoint.

Even the film's eye-catching finale-when one stops to ponder its rationalization-is an utterly barbaric act and, indeed, one of anarchic overkill. When the good guys are terrorists, apparently nobody is disturbed. Walking from the theater, I wondered if this futuristic Britain were better or worse off than when the film began. Anarchists, however, will be utterly delighted.

In a nutshell: "V for Vendetta" is an intriguing and partially successful, not-so-futuristic idea founded on blatantly radical viewpoints. Its failure to subtly sway may attract extremist approval but dramatically weakens the film's message. Instead of Orwell, we get Michael Moore. When building a structure of any great import, one might be advised not to use a bulldozer when a hammer would suffice.