Th Wachowskis got one thing completely right - the jail, especially Valerie's letter. Everything else was a fine movie (which I don't regret paying for) but also a textbook example of missing the goddamn point.
I wouldn't say they missed the point, because they refrained from explaining who V was, so they got the idea that ideas can be bigger than people. They also KIND OF got the message across that absolutism was dangerous, mostly by presenting a non-violent counterpoint in the variety show host's passive resistance, and how even though the government were assholes, the world was going to shit and England wasn't falling apart like everywhere else we see, so maybe sticking with them was better than V's alternative of blowing things up.
No, the major fault of the movie is that they felt the need to soften V to make him more appealing to audiences. That might have been executive meddling combined with Hugo Weaving's voice, I dunnow. But with him being nicer than he was intended to be, it defangs the message that he is just as dangerous as the Norsefire regime, but in different ways, and that forcibly imposing "freedom" upon the people via anarchy is no better than forcibly imposing order through a police state.
