V FOR VENDETTA is a blockbuster Hollywood movie that, for a change, lives up to its hype. The funny thing is that, as an action movie, it is not nearly what you would expect. Sure, there is enough excitement to make the film entertaining, but is reasonably spaced out through the running time, and it seldom seems overdone. This is no unending string of exploding buildings; in fact, the explosions are limited to two, which bookend the movie. V FOR VENDETTA is not a non-stop orgy of destruction; it's a film calculated to get under your skin.

The big draw is actually ideas and emotional content. In the context of a mass medium entertainment, the film does what pop art can do well: take on big ideas and dramatize them in a way that appeals to the public, without descending into academic abstraction. The result may not be subtle, but it's not meant to be. V FOR VENDETTA seeks to start a conversation by setting off a few fireworks guaranteed to grab your attention. Where you take it from there is up for you.

As a piece of cinema, V FOR VENDETTA is a glorious achievement. It manages to be a popular entertainment about a 1984-style oppressive future; without soft-selling its theme, it manages to be an appealing entertainment that is not too depressing for a mass audience.

The production design is wonderful (especially V's hidden lair), as are the special effects. The performances are strong: Natalie Portman erases her awful Princess Amidala image from the horrendous STAR WARS prequel trilogy; Hugo Weaving somehow manages to register from behind the mask that hides his face throughout the film; and Stephen Rea (as a detective tracking V, who shifts sympathies) actually makes you feel as if you are watching a genuine drama, not a comic book fantasy.

As a mindless action movie, V FOR VENDETTA would be a bit of a dud. None of the action scenes are as memorable as anything in the MATRIX trilogy, and V's extended ballet of violence near the end (with geysers of blood splashing across the screen in slow-motion) seems woefully overdone, in a last-ditch effort to satisfy those who want to see the villains get their final real come-uppance. The slow-motion works against the effectiveness of the scene, because the idea is supposed to be that V is so fast he can outmaneuver a superior number of men armed with guns. What was need here was the deft swiftness of Zorro’s flashing blade, or the tongue-in-cheek bloodlessness of a samurai film (wherein the hero swings his sword too fast to see, and his enemies fall over almost as if unaware of what hit them).

What saves the movie is the strength of its storytelling. The pacing sometimes lags (thanks to a running time that extends well past two hours), but much of the writing in individual scenes is brilliant and even moving. One of the highlights occurs when Evey (Portman), while imprisoned and being tortured, takes solace in notes she finds tucked in a rat hole by the occupant of the cell next door. The little mini-autobiography of her fellow unseen sufferer (portrayed in voice-over and flashbacks) is an eloquent condemnation of the injustice of persecuting innocent people because of their differences from the majority. (There's more emotional wallop in this sequence than in the entirety of the good but overrated BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.)

The film generated some controversy, with critics calling V (the masked title character, played by Hugo Weaving) a terrorist and even comparing him to Osama Bin Laden. Whether V is in fact a terrorist is open to debate: the government officials in the movie use that term to describe him, but his goal is not to terrorize the public; he is actually trying to foment a popular rebellion. He seeks not to instill fear but to inspire hope. The underlying message of the film is that many in the population already agree with him on some level, but they are afraid to act, because the fascist government that rules them seems too powerful, too invulnerable. V manages to prove that they can be defeated, and this spurs the previous frightened public to stand up.

Of course, one may argue about V's methods, which (not to whitewash the matter) do include violence and homicide. But that is part of the film's point, to raise the question of when violence is justified. V's use of violence certainly is, but that's because the story is set up that way: he lives in the world where the powerful are corrupt and above the law: he even points out that "no court" exists that could have administered justice to one of his victims (who so richly deserved it).

Some critics even called this approach irresponsible, claiming it advocates terrorism, but this is overstating the case. Just about everyone approves of violence in some circumstances; the key usually lies in the concept of "reciprocity" -- that the use of violence be appropriate under the circumstances (i.e., if someone's trying to hit you, you hit them back, but you don't kill them unless they're trying to kill you).

Certainly, there is no doubt that mainstream America thinks that violence is justified in overthrowing tyranny (that was the rational behind the American Revolution). Just a few years before this film's release, George W. Bush launched an unprovoked war to remove a dictator from power, and most everyone in the media cheered with approval. The main difference was that America used traditional weapons of war against Iraq; that purges them of any taint of terrorism -- regardless of how many innocent civilians were killed.

V, on the other hand, strikes down only the guilty. This is a pleasing fantasy that allows us to regard him favorably as at least an anti-hero, if not an outright hero. Like many classic movie monsters (think of the scarred sculptor in the 1953 version of HOUSE OF WAX), he has been wronged, and he seeks vengeance. The audience identifies with him because his motivation is just, even if his methods are questionable.

But there is nothing unique in this. V FOR VENDETTA shows frequent clips from an old film version of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, which is of course a revenge-melodrama, in which the title characters settles the score with those who wrong him. There are few would object to that film's subject matter, perhaps because its period setting makes it seems so remote.

V FOR VENDETTA deserves to be seen in the same context -- as fiction. The film is hardly advocating the explosive destruction of parliament, any more than COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO was advocating homicide. In art, we can see our inner fantasies and impulse personified; on the screen, we can watch characters who embody parts of our psyche as they act our scenarios that would not work in real life, and yet they resonate with a sense of reality because they touch upon elements of our conscious lives.

In real life, it's hard to imagine that V would be so lucky as not to cause a little collateral damage (i.e., loss of innocent life), but this isn't real life; it's a movie. And in that movie, it is perfectly acceptable to have a character who symbolizes that desire to stand up to a corrupt authority. The more corrupt the authority is, and the more extreme the methods needed to defeat it -- that only adds to the excitement of the story. Films should be writ large on the big screen, not narrowed down to the small confines of reality. In our actual politics, we need nuance and forbearance; we do not necessarily need the same in our politically themed art.