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Everything you need to know about ''V for Vendetta'' | 11300__v2_l

SHORN THING The Matrix's Reeves and Vendetta's Portman

The Matrix: Jasin Boland/Warner Bros/Kobal Collection; V for Vendetta: David Appleby

D for Darn Thing...
Sure looks like The Matrix. The appearance of the film fell to production designer and Matrix vet Owen Paterson. The craftsman and his crew built 89 sets at Germany's historic Babelsberg Studios, including the mazelike Shadow Gallery and an alley made of a pliable material that kept stuntmen from bruising. Also credited with sustaining the film's sci-fi slickness and noirish lighting is cinematographer Adrian Biddle (Aliens), who suffered a fatal heart attack after the movie wrapped. He sought to evoke earlier work by The Godfather's Gordon Willis and grimly expressive painters Francis Bacon and Matthias Grünewald. Says McTeigue simply: ''He made the film look good.''

G for Guy... who?
Guy Fawkes. Nope? Nothing? In Britain, kids celebrate the hanging of the revolutionary who tried to blow up Parliament in 1605. Vendetta updates Fawkes' story, with V undermining a futuristic dictatorship. Warner Bros. (a division of EW parent company Time Warner) hoped to release the movie last November for the 400th Guy Fawkes Day, but effects pushed the film to March 17. (The July 7 London bombings weren't a factor, the producers say.) And despite concerns about the Fawkesian parallels, the filmmakers insist that V doesn't glorify terrorism. But what else would they say? ''It might make you go, 'How do I view Che Guevara? [Or] Nelson Mandela?''' says McTeigue. ''Is V right or wrong? Is his morality ambiguous or bang on the money?''

B for But will it work?
The query McTeigue forgot to mention. Setting aside the potentially explosive politics, Vendetta is a tough sell. It's based on a cultish graphic novel, its hero is a bizarre chap who even Portman's character assumes is ''a crazy person'' when she meets him, and — how to put this delicately? — it's a seriously dense mind-screw. Then again, so was The Matrix. (And with a $50 million budget and multiple cofinanciers, Warner Bros. can make a profit without V becoming a $300 million smash.) Says Portman, ''I think people are going to be attracted to the fact that it's the first non-Matrix movie from the creators of The Matrix.'' Of course, it's also from the creators of Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions — but since any revolution requires a few casualties, we're willing to give 'em another shot.