The flick "V for Vendetta" is pretty good, leaning more toward the "popcorn" end of the good-movie spectrum and less toward the "classic" end. It's an anarchist dream (one that I wish could be true). What's most important about it is that it's quite popular with audiences, showing a dissipation of the "911 syndrome," at least among younger audiences.
The L.A. TIMES capsule review complains that the image of the future authoritarian government is a bit sketchy. I'd say instead that it leaves a lot to the imagination, an imagination fed with "rendition" and black hoods over government prisoners' heads. As with most political thrillers, it's really about the present, not the future: viewers link the elements of the present that show up in the film to fill out a picture of current reality. I don't know what UKers think, but it also seems to me to be more about the US than about England (where it officially takes place). The little glimpses of the "former United States of America" and its decline into chaos are quite sharp.
To paraphrase a lot of reviewers, is the male lead ("V") a terrorist or a freedom fighter? obviously, both. (In a serious movie, a hero is typically impure!) Strictly speaking, V's a horrible person (though his intentions are good). But that's because he's a product of a horrible society. The hope at the end is that he was the midwife (midhusband?) for a better society.
The main hole in the story is that V seems to have unlimited resources; he can pull almost anything off.
Awhile back I launched a joking sneer at the pretentions of professional movie critics. One reply was that while anyone can do movie critiques, that doesn't mean that others will choose to read them. That's right. The business of movie criticism like a market. Some people are much more successful as critics because they're more popular in terms of garnering readers and/or dollars (e.g., Gene Shalit). Of course, as economists should know, markets often fail. -- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles