V FOR VENDETTA

(2006) dir. James McTeigue; 132min.

FRIDAY, May 6th at 7 & 9:30pm

SATURDAY, May 7th at 7 & 9:30pm

SUNDAY, May 8th at 3pm

Concocted by the same team behind the "Matrix" franchise, "V for Vendetta," a future-shock story about a masked avenger at war with a totalitarian British regime, was drawn along the usual Orwellian lines but is clearly meant to have more than a passing resemblance to our current political environment. The story originated as a limited comic series in the early 1980's. Like the comic, the film is set in a near future, though now the time stamp is circa 2020. America, glimpsed only in passing on television, is paralyzed by civil unrest, and Britain has fallen to fascism. One night after curfew, a young woman, Evey (Natalie Portman), is saved from an assault by a man in a Guy Fawkes mask who introduces himself as V (Hugo Weaving, wasted under his costume). V slices and dices Evey's troubles away, topping off his handiwork first by reciting some vacuous verse and then by blowing up the Old Bailey.  — New York Times