15 · 132 minutes · 17 Mar

Director: James McTeigue

Starring: Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, John Hurt and Stephen Rea

Rating: 4.5/5

It hardly seems like a year since the first reports about the film of V for Vendetta - Alan Moore's dystopian vision of a totalitarian Britain and a terrorist in a Guy Fawkes mask - graced these pages. It's been a long and difficult road for the production since then, with the cast changing partway through (with star James Purefoy dumped in favour of Hugo Weaving), the harsh criticism it took from Moore himself, and the controversy it faced in the aftermath of July’s London bombings. Now it faces its final test: public opinion.

Here are the answers to the big questions: V for Vendetta is a fantastic film. But it’s markedly different from the graphic novel. Many elements have been changed or removed altogether, but all the most important scenes are intact and brilliantly handled, and the overall message and spirit of the original have not been lost. The cinematography is fantastic and the entire cast is wonderful. As promised, V does not show his face. Fans of the comic will, however, need to leave their inner purist at the door.

One of the most surprising things, though, is how little you miss the things that have been cut out. The story has been made a lot pacier while retaining the tone of the original comic, and it's been done quite cleverly. For example, the character of Gordon Dietrich (played beautifully - light-heartedly but with gravitas - by Stephen Fry) has been more or less entirely rewritten, changed from an underworld gangster to a popular TV show host and comedian, which means that an entire plot strand is no longer necessary. The story doesn't suffer for it at all. Other elements that we heard about over the past year - like the vexingly verbose script excerpt that made its way online - are nowhere near as appalling as we thought; indeed, Hugo Weaving delivers that first monologue brilliantly.

There are moments that don't work at all. Producers The Wachowski brothers have tried to inject a few moments of levity into the otherwise grim proceedings, but unfortunately they go too far and the results feel badly out of place – for example, a scene where V is cooking breakfast, clad in a pink frilly apron. This is the film’s biggest weakness: V is far too, well, human. It's hard to buy into the notion of him transcending humanity and representing an idea (as we do in the book), when we see him happily watching The Count of Monte Cristo on TV and engaging in some Phantom of the Opera-style angst. But there are enough scenes that work to make up for the weaker points. In particular the story of lesbian actress Valerie Page - entirely faithful to the book - is beautiful, poignant and deeply tragic. The horrors of the Larkhill concentration camp really come to life on the screen, and the closing scene of people in V masks flooding the streets of London is breathtaking.

The British government recently announced the introduction of compulsory biometric ID cards. The current Prevention of Terrorism Act means that "terror suspects" can be detained for 28 days without charge and their movements and communications can be tracked, with or without evidence. If ever there was a film important to and relevant for our times, it is V for Vendetta.

Leah Holmes