The DVD of 'V for Vendetta' has been released, and this enigmatic film will soon get far more exposure to American viewers than has previously been the case. They may be surprised to see that what reviewers and critics have led them to believe about the film is not true. Trawl the Internet for reviews, and you will find that they virtually all begin with some statement to the effect that "The theme of 'V for Vendetta' is terrorism." The statement is not only false but crudely false. 'V for Vendetta' is a film about revolution (as the Rolling Stones remind us under the film credits). The muddling of revolution and 'terrorism' in contemporary American discourse is remarkable to perceive and troubling to think about. The ham-handed critiques of 'V for Vendetta' suggest, as many things do, that Americans have been convinced to conflate all kinds of rebellion, protest, disorderliness, and outright criminality with 'terrorism.' That leaves little hope that Americans will draw upon their own political history to try to find their way out of their current domestic quagmire.

A small part of the explanation for this extraordinarly wrong-headed characterization lies in the mis-steps of the film's writing and direction. Alan Moore, co-creator with David Lloyd of the graphic novel series from which the film was derived, disassociated himself from the film and directly protested the editing out of the original philosophy of the novels. In Moore's conception, V was an anarchist, who believed that throwing the (future) fascist society of Britain into chaos would allow the truly creative and freedom-loving values of natural human communities to resurface. Though convinced that his actions would contribute to the destruction of fascism and the ultimate flowering of anarchy, V himself was an agent of chaos, whose antics had meaning only in the context of towering and apparently indefatigable tyranny. The sole explicit trace of this original 'V' philosophy in the film lies in a line spoken by Stephen Rea as Inspector Finch, who speculates, without looking very confident about it, that V wishes to foment "chaos." Beyond that, everybody else --even his sympathizers-- refer to V in the Wachowski script as a "terrorist." The closest they seem to come to making anything meaningful out of that are mushy ruminations in the hopelessly hacked-out vein of "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," which Stephen Fry actually says, without apparent embarrassment, in one of the interviews on the DVD.

No wonder Moore was furious. The film romanticises the idea of ideas --from Shakespeare, Faust, Guy Fawkes, and a few (very few) other sources, but has no time to examine any idea in an significant historical, semantic, or even dramatic context. Meaningless bits of plays and poems are strewn around the script, in a manner that V himself --who argues forcefully for the ethics of coherent and authentic speech-- would deplore. The film opens with Evey's voice praising the power of ideas, and suggesting that people who dedicate themselves to ideas sacrifice their human hopes for love. The contest between humanity and idealism, in whose crossfire V is more firmly fixed as his love for Evey grows, is frequently alluded to. Guy Fawkes eyes his beloved from the gibbet, Evey's parents leave her an orphan after they are imprisoned, V forsakes his beloved to carry out his idealist plot. But this great idea for which Fawkes and V sacrifice themselves and their love, it is exactly what? It doesn't appear to be the same as that of Valerie, Deitrich, and others who were killed by the state precisely because they loved. It is something else, but what? Not a philosophy in itself, but an idea that might be instrumental to any philosophy --except fascism. In what are nearly his last words V proclaims that he is, at his core, an "idea, and ideas are bullet-proof." Unfortunately V never says quite what the idea is, and when he expresses his only extended thought near the end of the film he says he was inspired to it by Evey, and that it only just occurred to him --not very convincing.

A TALE OF TWO STORIES

The variations between the Wachowski plot and the Moore plot reflect sharp and irreconciliable differences of philosophy, political concepts, and temperament. Some alterations are of a straightforward technical nature. For instance, in the Alan Moore work Lewis Prothero is never killed, but is tormented by V into a mindless state in which he can no longer front for the Mouth (the televized propaganda network, cognate to Wachowskis' "BTN"). Part of his insanity results from seeing V destroy some of Prothero's "priceless" dolls (on which Prothero obviously has also a rather bent fixation). The Wachowskis' instinct that film audiences are not going to be very persuaded that a propaganda front man can be permanently demented by seeing dolls destroyed was probably sound. Having Prothero become part of the revenge killlings associated with Larkhill makes sense, and is in fact more consistent with parts of the Moore plot than the dolls idea. The original novel also had a long series of subplots in its latter half, in which V manipulates the venal henchmen of the regime into mutual suspicion and, eventually, mutual destruction. These plots would not have fit into the film (they would fit into a miniseries), though they are very slightly suggested in the brief diversion into the William Rookwood scene and into the conversation between V and Creedy in the greenhouse. Instead, the film forces V to personally go about destroying all the chiefs of the government, to assure that none of them will be around to corrupt the future society. This leads, not inevitably but by Wachowski choice, to the illogical climactic scene in which V basically invites Creedy and his men to shoot him about a hundred times before he sets about killing them. Surely he could have better ensured the success of his plan by fighting back from the beginning of the scene. Though the film is a fantasy story, viewers still find certain loose ends in the story troubling. The Shadow Gallery full of the great art of the world is not a difficulty (and it was in the original novel); V is, after all, an accomplished thief and it is not surprising to find anything that exists in the world appearing in his lair. That is quite different from the idea that V can manufacture hundreds of thousands of masks, hats and cloaks. Something has gone wrong there. The film scripters have assumed that a superhero story can make everything believable. On the contrary, some things become believable in fantasy plots, and other things just become undigestible. The Wachowskis do not appear to have a great instinct for differentiating between the two. The scenes that make V look idiotic or clownish (or make us imagine him running a sweat shop in the Philippines where his costumes are turned out and boxed up) are all Wachowski, while the basic story line and the intriguing idea of man who is psychologically incapable of acknowledging identity as an individual subject to the usual means of identification and definition by the state --name, face (including retinal identification), residence, occupation, obedience to the law-- remain essential legacies of the original work.

In a few cases, omitting some part of the original plot, such as Prothero's dementalization at V's hands, leaves the Wachowski's with plot questions that are not merely demeaning to V but seriously damaging to his credibility as a hero. Whence comes the elaborate prison set that V uses to torture Evey? According to what Wachowski V tells Evey later, he decided spontaneously to rescue Evey (without her realizing it) from the scene of Deitrich's arrest, and then carried through the mood with her simulated imprisonment and torture. When did he have time to build the concrete and steel prison, torture room, and shower? If he had it around for a while, what was it for? Did he subject others to re-education as he had subjected Evey? Did he use it for personal purposes, to relive his own torture and reinforce his own awareness? Was he planning for a much longer time to imprison and torture Evey? In the Moore plot, the facilities were used much earlier to destroy Prothero's sanity, a reasonable part of V's overall program. In the Wachowski plot, the existence of the prison set is a very disturbing question, causing the viewer to suspect on some level that V is in fact a liar and a sadist, whose own narrative of his actions and motives is incomplete or deceitful. That does not help their project. It also does not enhance the credibilty of the Wachowski V as a planner; although he is depending on Evey to complete his project, he declares himself unsure that she will ever return. Suppose she had not come back? Nobody to start the train (and, in the film, the train is unpainted, which seems unforgivably lazy).

Other parts of the film plot, completely made up by the Wachowskis, often increase the inanity fo a film that could have had real weight. In order to make their Evey appear more "intelligent" than the original, the Wachowskis give her an improbably rich Shakespearean education, all before the age of 9 (at which age she supposedly entered a juvenile "reclamation" camp). The psychological tension between V and Evey, which in the novel is complex and sometimes puzzling, is vastly simplified in the Wachowski plot, turning partly upon the senseless departure of Evey from V's home for the last part of the film, and setting up the embarrassing reunion and the mawkish dance scene (which, in the novel, occurs very early in their relationship and is far more casual --though, yes, the disco ball is clearly there). However much she may know about Shakespeare, the Wachowski Evey seems unable to see the obvious --after leaving V, she buys a fake ID and tries to live obscurely, but keeps her head bald, probably making her the most conspicuous young woman in London (to answer her taunt to V, a Guy Fawkes mask probably works better than bald head on a young girl). And anybody who can figure out how Natalie Portman could drag Hugo Weaving down a train platform and deposit his lifeless form across the seats inside the train should apply for a PhD from MIT immediately.

Both plots feature, centrally, Evey's coerced transformation at the hands of V, a compelling idea that works fairly well in all three media --graphic novel, straight novel (by Steven Moore, from the original Wachowski script), and film. But the meaning of the transformation and the meaning of V's revolutionary act, which are tied together, are very different in the Alan Moore and the Wachowski universes. In the Moore graphic novel, Evey's imprisonment is an organic phase in a total program that V evidently has in mind for disrupting, diverting and ultimately transforming Evey's normal course of maturation. When he meets Evey, she is still a child, though rapidly inculcating the invidious values of society --that all people prostitute themselves to survive, that women prostitute themselves sexually for this reason, and that the only response is a combination of physical submission and psychological retreat into a childhood of fantasy and irresponsibility. V indulges Evey's need for a childhood (which she has never properly enjoyed) for a time, providing her total safety, plenty of toys, and reading to her from childish fantasy stories.

But when she shows signs of corruption --projecting her sexual fantasies, some of which are rather incestuous, upon him-- he abandons her abruptly, casting her into the archetypically cold, cruel world that exists outside his sanctuary. Once outside, Evey resumes the path of corrupt maturation, falling in opportunistically with the criminal Gordon Deitrich, becoming his lover, and attempting to childishly ignore the world of treachery, murder, greed, and vanity in which he is involved. When Deitrich becomes a victim of his criminal associations, Evey believes she has been captured by the horrible "fingermen." She is, in fact, once more in V's hands, and he proceeds to root out completely, traumatically, the corrupting values that society in general, and her life as Deitrich's moll particularly, have instilled in her. When she has confronted the greatest terrors and found an ability to say "No," even to the opportunity to return to her degraded former life, V releases her and reveals the truth behind her torment. He denies that he in fact imprisoned her --"I didn't create the prison, I only showed you the bars." His intention was to reveal that the roots of Evey's imprisonment were her own refusal to take responsiblity for herself, her willingless to accord the state the power to control and protect her. After Evey recovers from the emotional shock, she (hereafter called "Eve" by the Moore V) becomes a partner in V's plans to destroy the state's hold over society.

In the Wachowski treatment, V's ambition is only to free Evey from her fears. She is detained by V at the end of the Wachowski Gordon Deitrich subplot (radically different though not inherently inferior to the original Gordon Deitrich subplot), after her terror of state detention has led her to betray V and then to unintentionally endanger Deitrich himself. V uses her imprisonment to free her of her fears of pain and death, and to allow her to see the small core of courage and detachment within her that is the key to her ultimate freedom. After the truth is revealed, Evey leaves V's home, making a little home of her own in which she watches The Count of Monte Cristo on her own little television and dresses in her own little way (like a street urchin instead of an office gofer). She returns to V only because he has asked her to come back before November 5. She appears to be unsure of the necessity or morality of the plan up to the final moment, which contrasts very strongly with the original idea of Evey as a dedicated participant (though with a moderation and flexibility that will allow her to be viable in the society coming after).

The contrasting meanings of Evey's re-education reveal the profound differences in understanding between Moore and the Wachowskis. These differences are also demonstrated in the opposing content of the Moore and Wachowski speeches of V from the broadcasting center. In the original, V speaks as an unhappy boss to his lazy, irresponsible, wanton, amoral employees, threatening to deal harshly them if they do not change their ways in the near future (being the end of the millenium, since the Moore story takes place mostly in 1998). The Wachowski V, however, speaks to his viewers as a kindly uncle, expressing compassionate understanding for their willingness to be intimidated by the state, but inviting them to join him in standing up to, and eventually destroying, tyranny. To Moore, evil governments spring from the unmitigated violence, greed, and egotism of society, and the individuals within it. His V does not calmly invite the people to throw off an alien tyranny that is oppressing them, but demands personal moral transformation, perhaps painful, from the inside out. To the Wachowskis, however, people are basically sound, and need only to have their courage enhanced in order to resist oppression. The cause of evil government, in their view, is not human nature itself, but the opportunistic corruption of government by diseased individuals.

These different philosophies also control other plot changes. In the original, Evey has a parallel in Eric Finch, head of the police. Finch is introduced as a man who is openly skeptical of many state policies, something the Chancellor (Adam Susan) tolerates because of Finch's effectiveness as a police administrator. Finch at first assesses V as an insane serial killer, but as he learns more of V's methods he is intrigued. To find what he believes is the real secret of V he goes literally outside society and its laws --he goes outside the security perimeter to visit the ruin of Larkhill, and there takes LSD (which he is not very good at concocting), having a vision of all that has transpired in his society. He comes out of it devastated at the actions of Delia Surridge and her colleagues, but also grieving for the loss of diversity, compassion, and authentic integrity in his society. Finch is afterward a broken man, unable to return to his normal work, eventually wandering the abandoned underground. In the original plot he is the agent of V's death, which appears to be at least partly self-willed. The Wachowskis abandon this plot entirely. Finch is throughout a determined, straight-arrow policeman, who merely visits Larkhill, has a prescient feeling, then returns to his office and calmly discusses the experience with his junior associate. At the end of the film Finch is in the underground, for no particular reason, and shows up to make an lame attempt to stop the completion of the plot, though a few fairly vapid words from Evey convince him to abandon his interference and let things take their predetermined course.

The characterization of the Chancellor is also far more textured in the Moore plot than in the Wachowski treatment. In the original, Adam Susan, the Chancellor, is a radical idealist, who makes huge personal sacrifices in order to bring total order to his society. After all, the Britain that Susan controls has narrowly escaped obliteration in a nuclear war, and is struggling to survive in a poisoned world, occasionally flooded due to global warming. The dangers faced by his society are very real, and he believes that total control by the state is the only protection. Being at the top, Susan is not personally corrupted by the code of prostitution by which the rest of the society functions. He not only never compromises himself but is a virgin, in love only with his totalitarian tool, the computer system Fate. The Wachowski Chancellor, however --whose name has been changed to Sutler in a fundamental move to make him into the cartoon fascist dictator-- is a religious maniac whose society faces no dangers apart from the terror hoaxes perpetrated by his own government. The Moore Chancellor is the enemy of V because he is the narrow-minded, naive head of a coercive government. The Wachowski Chancellor is V's enemy because he is a brutal maniac, cruel, bigoted, and insane. He is bad because he is the stereotypical fascist dicator, and V is his enemy because V is the stereotypical freedom fighter.

In the Moore plot, the relationship between the Chancellor and V --or, between what they represent-- is more complex. Susan occupies the opposite pole from V. Like Susan, V is never corrupted by the need to prostitute his body or mind. He may not be technically a virgin, but he professes romantic attachment only to the Goddess of Justice, whose image atop the Old Bailey he destroys because Justice has betrayed her true lover and taken up with another, who has "given her a taste for whips, chains and torture." V expels Evey from his domain when she shows signs of attempting to introduce the culture of personal prostitution to his relationship with her. And he shares Susan's concept of Fate as a sexual partner to the extent that he calls his computer center his "love nest" and claims to have cuckolded Susan after he has hacked into the sacred Fate computer. The Wachowski V, on the other hand, is a sexual abstainer in the style of the ever-virtuous Batman. He is dedicated to the pursuit of values, and has little or no interest in the pleasures of the body. Moreover, the Wachowskis insist that V is mutilated, and perhaps blind (which leaves quite a few questions). This is a strong and suggestive contrast to Moore, who has Delia Surridge comment in her diary --well before the fire that destroyed Larkhill-- that The Man in Room Five is "very ugly;" but after she is repentent, and V shows her his face on the night of her impending death, she gasps that his face is "beautiful." There is no statement in the Moore novel that V is blinded or mutilated in the fire, only that he came through the fire in order to gain his freedom. Additionally, at the end of the Moore novel, Eve has to take the mask from the dead V, but wonders how to do so without seeing his face (a violation of their code), and all the panels associated with Eve's imaginative resolutions of her dilemma indicate that V has a normal face, not one so mutilated that he is forced out of the realm of normal human interaction. The Wachowskis, however, seem to believe that if V is not mutilated there is little to explain why he would not be all over Evey like a cheap suit. Like the Phantom of the Opera, Wachowski V has no hope of normal romantic relationship with a woman, and exerts his attraction through his moral purity and his personal representation of a safe haven.

The discarding of the more complex Chancellor and of the Finch subplot in the Wachowski treatment is connected to something deeper that the Wachowskis also discard from the Moore plot. In the graphic novel, V is a convinced anarchist, who does not believe that the individuals in his society are ready to govern themselves. He believes that the destruction of the state --or the interruption of its functions, which he achieves at several points-- will lead to a phase of chaos, and not directly to a good society. In the chaotic period --represented in Evey's childhood fiction as "The Land of Do-What-You-Please"-- V expects the worst in people to come out, which it does. He reminds Evey, "This is not anarchy. This is chaos." This, he hopes, will be the social parallel of what he was able to effect in Evey individually. In the chaos that V unleashes, Finch is one of the chaotic elements who will kill V himself, as Rose (whose entire rather tedious story is excised from the film) is the chaotic element who will kill the Chancellor. The chaos will be a complete social breakdown, complete exposure of the cowardly, violent, selfish character of the unreconstructed human being. When the graphic novel ends, this is the state of the society, once V's plan has freed it from Susan's tyrannical state. Whether or not humanity will find itself from there to anarchic peace and prosperity is unanswered. Evey will be V's successor in the new society, and Dominic Stone will succeed her, continuing to prod humanity toward it highest condition.

The Wachowski plot, and indeed the Wachowski view, is far simpler. Humanity is basically alright, but needs to have its courage sharpened, and bad people have to be prevented from using government to tyrannical ends. The destruction of tyranny necessarily means that the good in people will come out, and that government will assume its correct, constructive relationship to the populace. Indeed the script, in Evey's voiceover, states that this is exactly what happens. How such a thing could come to be --given human history, after all-- is never admitted as a question. One is left to see V as the supremo among superheroes --one who rights wrongs not on a case-by-case or villain-by-villain basis, as with Zorro, Robin Hood, Superman, or Batman, but who rights every wrong by destroying the superstructure that makes all wrong possible, and in the process destroys himself in recognition of his obsolence in coming era of good government.

Moore publicly criticized the Wachowskis for using an essentially British story --derived in part from 1984, , and Moore's own understanding of British philosophy, history and politics-- to tell an American fantasy, with London a mere picturesque backdrop. He also suggested that the Wachowskis were attempting to have it both ways --wanting praise for their "courage" for telling a story about government corruption, duplicity, and manipulation of terrorism, while using the ruse of a different country and a different time to take the edge off their meaning and deflect the consequences of genuinely challenging government authority. There is coherence in Moore's comments. The viral terrorism plot speaks to what are still distinctly American obsessions, and the satirical treatment of talk shows, talking heads, and news readers appear also topically American and unrelated to any major themes in the original story. On the other hand, in the current vice of terror hype and government aggression, the UK is falling as far and as fast as the USA into the grip of post-democratic culture. There is no reason to assume that if Moore had written his story in 2005, rather than in 1985, that it would not have featured a viral plot and noted more features of the Blair (as contrasted to the Thatcher) regime (and perhaps, not have suggested the use of a disco ball in V's Shadow Gallery). It is certainly true that the Wachowskis would have shown more courage to have placed their story, animated as it is by American concerns and topics, in America. But then, what of V? It is inconceivable that V could be displaced from London and its history. The Wachowskis, if Moore had his way, would have made up their own superhero parable of the destruction of a terror-exploiting tyranny, and left V alone. But does the world really need film about a V-inspired non-V fighting totalitarianism? Is there not in fact enough substance in the basic concept of the V story to permit both the Moore plot and the Wachowski treatment (which is not without virtues) to coexist? After all, they are in basic agreement that fear of death is the root of corruption and evil, that Valerie's letter is the guiding moral text of V, and that heart of the "V" story is really Evey's transformation from safety-craving child to integrity-loving adult.

THE FILM PAST AND FUTURE

Technically, philosophically, visually, and almost every other way the film resolutely turns its back on productive and clarifying references. V's mask, promisingly, more resembles a cartoon of Errol Flynn as Robin Hood than the original mask of V as depicted in the novels (in which he looks something like a younger, slimmer and more menacing Santa Claus). Indeed the voice behind the mask (Hugo Weaving, voiced over a variety of persons behind the mask --stunt men, occasionally James Purefoy, frequently himself) suggests a refined and gentle Robin Hood figure, and a funny scene of V practicing his swordsmanship with an empty suit of armor recalls more the Flynn/Rathbone battle than the scene from The Count of Monte Cristo supposedly being referenced. The smile of the mask is pleasingly somewhere between the enigmatic smile of Buddhist religious busts and the manic grin of the clown. It suggests enlightened mischief, exactly what V has in mind.

Otherwise, the mask is mishandled. It supposedly drove James Purefoy off the production. Hugo Weaving, an actor who shows an intriging penchant for hiding his true face anyway, was undaunted, but he was not properly supported by his director or production team. The choice of a rigid mask, without even blinking eyes or a moving mouth, was critical. More than one reviewer complained about the bizarre effect. Having a moving mouth helps a great deal, which was obviously perceived by producers of Zorro films and television, the Robocop producers, as well as the producers of Phantom of the Opera. But a total mask, even a rigid one, presented other opportunities that the director simply did not explore. The Japanese have had four hundred years of working with rigid masks, to stunning effect, in the No theater (should we not wish to consider the hundreds of years of such theater among the ancient Greeks). In Dr. Syn, The Scarecrow (another film ancestor to which this film pays no homage at all), Patrick McGoohan got behind a total mask, added an uncanny voice, and scared the dickens not only out of the agents of British tyranny but also out of the audience. Weaving does a creditable job of using body language, backed up by occasionally effective lighting, to get some non-verbal expression going, and when not overdone --as does happen a moment or two-- it works.

Weaving's success, however, is undermined repeatedly by the director trying to use gimmicks to get across the idea of a personality behind the mask, among them the use of fey gestures to suggest V's occasional embarrassment or insecurity; gratuitous (and coarsening) exposure of V's burned hands (other passages in the film make adequately clear what happened to him and how it affects his entire body); his wearing of a frilly apron while cooking; the effects of a disco ball to suggest a romantic atmosphere when V and Evey are dancing; V using his mask to smash a mirror to demonstrate his agony at being unable to relate to Evey as a man, followed by his sobbing (the V of the original novel had gone beyond sentimental delusions, something Evey found consistently frustrating). Sometimes the indignities inflicted upon V by the filmmakers consist of painfully ill-conceived scenes and dialog, as when V acts like an awkward and very banale former lover after Evey shows up for their final reunion (none of it part of the original novel). By far the greatest mishap results from a decision to voice over V's lines. The necessity for it is obvious --sound engineering all through the film is poor, background music often drowns out the actors' lines, and even novice viewers will catch awkward intrusions of redubbing in many of the scenes. But the undisguised voice-over of V's lines adds a disorienting quality to the entire film. If the director wanted to stay with the rigid, total mask (a perfectly good decision as far as it goes), he should have moved heaven and earth to successfully mike Weaving in all his scenes, to keep V as a physical point of reference and to make it sound like he and Evey are speaking in the same dimension.

The flubbing of the mask issue is typical of many of the film's other conceptual shortcomings. V's wig gives the unfortunate impression of a Marlo Thomas cast-off, and in some scenes it seems to give him a slightly cone-head appearence. A more naturalistic, and probably shorter, wig would have been better (and better recalled the novels, in which the wig is indeed shorter and auburn, not black). Similarly, V's clothes look like flimsy Halloween costumes (Guy Fawkes's Day is the performative equivalent of Halloween, after all, though the writers do not indicate that they know that); they do not look like they would suit the tastes or the practical needs of a robber, street-fighter, and revolutionary. The violent combat scenes, filmed in slow motion, are sophomoric, mimicking the slow, drawling, syrupy effects of the worst moments of the Matrix series. V as a character and as an icon may stand for violence, but not of this puerile sort. We already know that until the final battle V is going to vanquish all his challengers. Make it swift and decisive, as V himself is. (Fighting in the style precisely needed in V for Vendetta is used to tremendous effect in Batman Begins.)

The promise of suspense in the film is wasted in these meandering fight scenes, and the promise of meaningful dialogue wasted in a script stuck on simplistic and uninteresting soliloquies, much based on mindless cribbings of Shakespeare that owe nothing to the intertextuality of the Moore novel. The script writers seem not to understand their own story, and its ending --potentially beautiful in its simplicity-- is marred by a veering off into mysticism (a trick from the Matrix, whenever the writers had walked themselves down an alley whose destination they either forgot or never knew). In fact, the original concept of 'V,' still reverberating through the film because the scripters had nothing compelling to displace it with, is the drama of the end of fascism as a closed system. 'V for Vendetta' was built on a small story of a man bent on vengeance for the tortures (and, in the Wachowski treatment, disfigurement) he was subjected to by a cruel, blind, self-seeking state. But his story floated within the larger story, for by seeking vengeance he intended to introduce a fatal chaos into the system, resulting in its total destruction and a new age of freedom for his society. Despite his love of The Count of Monte Cristo, (a figment of the Wachowski film that is not derived form the novel, where V never mixes fantasy and reality), V is not a mere avenger who can retire to a tree with his beloved when his work is done. His goal is the ultimate destruction, and the ultimate self-sacrifice. This basic framework is still evident in the film, though no character addresses it directly; instead, V himself, his associates and his victims all seem bewildered by his determination to go beyond a fixed set of murders to the devastation of public monuments. The characters all seem to be intellectually defeated by V's program, and in consternation can only call him a 'terrorist," wondering at their ability to sympathize with his ends.

But V is not a terrorist. His plans to destroy public buildings all take place at night (the better to see his fireworks), when the buildings are uninhabited and their drones home safe in their beds (thanks to curfew). His one stereotypically terrorist act --an assault on the central television headquarters, wrapped in what appear to be explosives-- is never shown (in either novel or film) to have been a terrorist act at all, as the explosives never explode (and it is suggested that it does not matter which wire Dascomb cuts). Apart from self-defense, V never endangers or kills the innocent. Of course, if his chaos leads others to indulge their worst instincts and the innocent get killed, that only proves his point. On the most superficial level V is more Zorro than terrorist, righting wrongs through personal violence because the society no longer has the will or the institutions to do so. Yet his victims, even the most despicable, all die more easily than their sins would suggest they should. V's goal is not to terrify the public and indirectly weaken the state. In the fascist system, this can never happen --terror strengthens the state, as the bureaucrats and newsreaders of the film repeatedly celebrate. V's program is to embolden the public, to shame them into action, to belittle the state and take away its ability to instill terror. And to the end (even of the confused and philosophy-starved Wachowski film), V is true to his conception of the future, for he knows he will have no place in it. V would be meaningless, a gratuitous evil, in a free society and an uncoerced culture. He intends to die before the future he hopes for can arrive. He is a radical element that can have no beneficial effects in the liberal, sane, and humane society he envisages will come after --it will be for Evey, and Inspector Finch (the only two surviving characters in the film who are never masked), and other decent, moderate, private individuals to survive. In the film, V is still an anarchist --though an inarticulate, incoherent, inconsistent, and trivialized one. And the destruction of monuments once emblematic of democracy, but now denatured by the degradation of the political culture so that they are merely symbols of insuperable power, is still necessary, even if neither the characters nor the writers remember why. (It seems to have befuddled the smaller-minded among reviewers, too, who complained that the destruction was a breach of taste or manners, as if the one necessity of the film was a gratuitous bit of graffiti).

Other pieces of the thematic puzzle lie out of place in the film. V's fixation on the 1812 Overture is presented as a good background to his public demolitions for the mere reason that it has a lot of cannon noise in it. The script writers could have done better. Tchaikovsky's nationalist celebration is not on its surface an homage to autonomy, liberty, or anything else associated with V. But it surely would not have escaped V's notice that the work commemorates successful resistance to Napoleon --who transformed himself from defender of the people from chaos to their emperor and oppressor, precisely as the film's fascist dictator, Adam Sutler, does. A reference to Faust, promising enough in relation to V, is left to fall with the dust on a table top (in the novel, the Faust quote relates to Evey's concept of deal-making as a way of surviving). Other echoes of V's debt to British television and film of the 1960s such as the Avengers, the Prisoner (which seems to be recalled in Gordon 's television skit, but perhaps it is all a coincidence) appear to have been bouncing around in the writer's heads without arousing any authorial curiosity as to their origins or proper fit.

The derivative and jejeune qualities of the production do not overwhelm the basic power of its meaning (which audiences can, fortunately, reconstruct on their own). The twirling knives of the stunt men impersonating V is stupendous --it captures the entire potential of the film in a second or less (though many viewers will be distracted by the fact that David Leitch is visibly shorter than Hugo Weaving and James Purefoy; in combat scenes V is suddenly the height of most of his opponents, and not taller). The destruction of the Houses of Parliament is brilliant. What is more, the film has at least one narrative coup and contains at least one genuine literary innovation of value. The cinematic moment occurs while Finch relates his prescient vision at the ruins of Larkhill (which, in the novel, was facilitated by LSD, which has disappeared from the film). The sequence captures the motive of V's history vividly, and with a fluency that the film achieves nowhere else. It far surpasses the rather abstract lament that is its precedessor in the novel. It unites past and future, and in fact is the fulcrum that spins the actual narrative into its final tilt. As a moment this sequence is not entirely conceptually original with the film; a Scandinavian stage production of V for Vendetta in the 1990s featured a filmed montage that presages the film sequence. Nevertheless the director showed the good sense to follow where earlier traditions had led, and did so effectively.

Of a more literary nature is the film's reconstruction of Gordon Deitrich. In the novels, Deitrich was a minor and rather unappealing character. In the film (Stephen Fry playing himself, as usual), becomes a secular doppelganger of V. Like V, Dietrich is physically imposing, enjoys but does not abuse power over those around him, has a secret identity, keeps a gallery of forbidden treasures, makes a funny egg and toast concoction for breakfast, and produces (perhaps as a long-suppressed wish) a public demolition of his own. But unlike V, Deitrich is a vulnerable mortal, who had not planned to die. His fate is an index of the lethality and the totality of the regime, and the necessity of V's program for chaos.

The successful identity turn involving Diettrich's construction in the film relates to the general issue of identity that it has inherited from the original novels. At some point in his torments V claimed to have lost all memory of his identity and history. Whether it is regained or not is unclear; V makes no reference to any past before his torture, and a portion of the script suggests that he was randomly chosen as a subject of experimentation because of certain genetic anomalies. V never responds to Evey's questions about his past, but he does not say it is because he has no recollection. Nevertheless, he is compelled by forces beyond his control to suppress his true face, his true name, his true wishes. His enemy, the state, with its black bags has made the obliteration of identity the literal equivalent of death. V's struggle is ironic, he conceals and distorts his identity in the hope of reestablishing the true identity of the society. V has, it is suggested, taken on at least part of the identity of the martyred Valerie, as much as of Guy Fawkes, whom the novels and films construct as an early hero of the movement for freedom against the overweening state (not historically a complete picture of Fawkes, but not an artistically invalid one either). Through V, the martyrs all become elements in the destruction of the tyranny that killed them, and are symbolically resurrected when it falls. The obverse of the suppression of V's individuality is the infusion of his identity into the society around him --first Evey, then the mass of Londoners who take up his invitation to join his masquerade. Their final act of liberation is to remove their masks (the liberating act that V can never achieve). After fascism, the need for masks, secret vaults, lies, and suppressed wishes is gone; truth and love --which the film convincingly equates, especially in Evey's forced rebirth as a human with the courage to forsake life for love and truth-- may live.

A remake of this film will probably prove an irresistable temptation in the future. The process will have to begin with a new concensus on the most meaningful plot modules for a relevant and perhaps timely production. The Wachowskis' rejection of the Rose subplot and the transformation of the Deitrich story are not necessarily hostile interventions. They have used the viral terrorism theme to tightly tie together the narrative of V's victimization and the deeply cynical corruption at the heart of the Norsefire government; in the Moore story, these developments have a loose, almost haphazard relationship that could not well support the needs of a two-hour film. On the other hand, they did not follow up the rich potential of their virus theme --after all, if V is the source of the vaccine that allowed the Norsefire government destroy its victims while assuring survival of themselves and their followers, then he is the central fact of both the state and the resistance movement against it (possibly V is referring to this in the scene in which he shows Evey his train and says he must perish with "the world I have helped shape.") Rich stuff, but ignored by the writers. They have also infantilized the political texture of the original story, and dishonestly portrayed the ideal of anarchy, neither of which helps the coherence or increases the interest of the film. A more mature treatment would reestablish the tension between chaos and anarchy, probably bringing back more of the Finch story (with its connection to chaos and fate) along with it. And whatever the Wachowskis were trying to achieve by having Evey leave V after her transformation has not worked. A new restructuring of the story should have Evey stay where she is, nothing more to prove, to help V work toward his final act to liberate society from fascism and deliver it to the uncertainties of chaos.

Such a film, less dependent on simplifications and more open to the true ambiguities of the Moore story, would probably not be well served by same kind of actors. For the Wachowski treatment --Zorro/Batman beats Hitler-- the current cast is nearly perfect: Stephen Rea as a decent if not brilliant detective; Rupert Graves as his loyal and unspoiled junior; John Hurt as the painfully maniacal dictator Sutler; Stephen Fry, whose persona is happily suited to that of the television-host-as-accidental-martyr; the brilliant stage actor Roger Allam as a thoroughly worthless television blowhard; lovely John Standing (more shades of the The Avengers) as a hypocritical bishop; Natasha Wightman as the tragic Valerie; Tim Pigott-Smith doing his usual despicable villain; Sinead Cusack as the guilt-ridden Delia Surridge; and a host of people who play uniquely powerful small parts, some never speaking but consistent presences anyway. Weaving as V relies upon a soft-spoken, gentle, demeanor with Evey and an archly Shakespearean, declamatory address to his challengers. A Moore-inspired V would have a greater edge to his voice in all settings, more projection, and far more underlying menace. Portman as Evey is suitable only to the Wachowski treatment of the character as a young woman of ambition (the original Evey faced a future as a factory worker and had no ambitions under than getting some extra cash through prostitution), seeking opportunities for advancement, but constantly inhibited by her unacknowledged fears. Portman is able, barely, to negotiate Evey through her harrowing re-education to a state of personal independence. It is hard to imagine her carrying off a portrayal of the original Evey/Eve, who grows from a callow, helpless child to a cynical but still cowardly child-woman, to a competent, dedicated, morally autonomous and physically imposing rebel against the state. This Evey is able to impersonate V --hardly likely to be credibly done by the child-like and child-sized Portman. Stephen Rea, on the other hand, would have been quite capable of playing the complex character of the Moore graphic novel, while he is wasted on the two-dimensional portrayal favored by the Wachowskis. John Hurt would like have been able to play the Moore idealist dictator as easily as the Wachowski maniac. Overall, the Moore story demands a television miniseries, probably done by a British production company. Such a medium could do far more justice than any feature film can do.

One is left to marvel that American reviewers could gabble that the "theme" of the Wachowski film is "terrorism." Most likely the consensus is due to the fact that consensus is approved of in the current America media (like the "Mouth" of Moore's original novels). It is important to repeat what others say, and especially important to repeat the phrases used in the promotional materials distributed by the studio. The Wachowskis were eager to garner points for "courage" by making a film about terrorism and fascism, but they appear to have been not very eager to actually challenge viewers to think about what happens in a political system that is increasingly self-referential, self-replicating, self-justifying, and unmoored from its historical roots and values. Or, to put it more plainly, Americans think the film is about "terrorism" because that is exactly what Adam Sutler would want them to think.