TJIC fisks an overwrought review of V for Vendetta:
Douglas Kern has done a decent job of arguing that - for example - Saddam Hussein wasn’t the real fascist; the Iraqi Kurds who fought against him were the real fascists. After all, they killed government employees, they had an “endless sense of grievance” (just because family members were variously tortured, murdered, and slaughtered with chemical weapons) by the regime, and sometimes wore masks when they fought the Baathist government.
The (reader) comments in the TCS review are more thoughtful and interesting than the review. From The Economist (sub only), a much more reasonable reaction:
A controversial film that is really a pot-boiler from olden days
INTERNET ink is already being spilt over “V for Vendetta”, in which Natalie Portman plays a terrorist. But the only blood spilt in this film, written and produced by Andy and Larry Wachowski, belongs to fascist baddies who have turned England into Orwell-land sometime in the near future.
[...]
The story is notable for its sturdy Old Hollywood virtues. The graphic novel on which the film is based (by Alan Moore and David Lloyd) is the nth retelling of “The Count of Monte Cristo”. So it is no surprise that V’s favourite way of passing the time in his underground lair is watching the Robert Donat film version of Dumas’s matchless tale.
[...]
The film (directed by James McTeigue, a Wachowski associate) harks back to the 1930s, when Warner Brothers, the studio that made it, was known for this kind of revolutionary pop art. Its tale of doomed love and derring-do may bring a lump to the throat. As for the dystopian fable, only fans of detention centres, torture, unfettered government surveillance, screaming-mad television pundits and laws against alternative lifestyles will find anything here that could possibly offend.
I’ve got a few opinions on the translation of the comic to the movie that I’ll post when I have a little free time.