Also, all (not some, but all) of the principal characters were identified at one point or the other as being homosexual.
"and left unexplained is why "V" happened to have immediate access to one of the Grand Chancellor's underground torture chambers."
Ok I saw the movie and whomever told you this didnt understand the movie. The torture chamber was made by V and was NOT one of the Chancellor's. He states it in the movie. Its as plain as day.
I suggest either watching the movie again or having someone explain that scene to you.
On the political side....
Look ,the movie is entertainment. People are just pushing their own political views into it. I was very surprised that I wasnt offended after all the hype and I am VERY conservative.
Oh and yep, there was homosexuality in it, but it showed how NAZI-Like the government was by just killing them off or using them in expirements. V and Evie were not homosexuals.
Jeeze even the pedophile Bishop of the Church of England (I was astonished it wasnt a catholic priest after all the hype) wasnt homosexual. Still the moster deserved what he got.
I thought the effects were lame, and expected more fight scenes. Boring.
The torture chambers were replicas inside V's secret Wayne Manor like home, mbuilt so he could test Evie. Stooopid.
He didn't have access to the Grand Chancellor's torture chambers. Evey wasn't captured by the government, but by V himself, in disguise. She was held in the chambers and "tortured" (water dunking, isolation, etc.) by V. The chambers were in V's underground hideout. V planted the story about the gay actress on the slip of paper in the cell to give Evey the strength to overcome her fear of death and torture so that she would become a defiant freedom fighter. He hated what he did to her, but he felt he had to do it to make her the fighter she wanted to become.
The politics in the film were kind of annoying, especially the over the top lionization of homosexuals, but they were not center to the story. Any oppressive government similar to the one depicted in the film, whether they're systematically exterminating Christians, Jews, homosexuals, or petty thieves for that matter should be brought down. The filmmakers' biases were showing pretty badly, but I don't think that they hurt the central story too badly.
Ah, so it's soon-to-be-Oscar-nominated.