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The Legend of Zorro
Lovable, pettable and insteadly forgettable, The Legend of Zorro is charismatic but as substantial as The Tellytubbies. No surprise there then.
The Legend of Zorro is, in all honesty, not very good. It's shallow pap of the highest order and will be forgotten long before the shock of the price of the popcorn has faded, but for an evening's diversion with the kids you could do a lot worse. Take it with a heap of salt and enjoy the stunts. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: - some Zeta cleavage and lots of good old-fashioned swordplaying hi-jinx. People die (which surprised me), but it's still family-safe. To enjoy this film you should: expect it to be nonsense. Or be twelve.
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Set in mid 19th century California and drowned in comedy Spanish accentry, legendary swashbuckler Zorro has succumbed to the
giant thumb of marriage and is heading towards retirement and a life of matrimonial and fatherly bliss. Fatherly, you say?
Yes, our befringed brawler begat a brat - any guesses how he becomes involved? You could write it yourself, you really
could. But if you did, you'd put more comedy moments in - it desperately needs them. What it doesn't need is special
effects. For the most part the movie wisely ditches them in favour of old-fashioned stuntmen, suiting the feel of the
movie, but for the climactic train sequence, dodgy effects abound, serving only to distract the viewer from what should
be a stunt spectacle. The final demise of the bad guy is so obviously a tiny model that the visual guys have clearly been
hanging around Thunderbirds auctions. It really is that bad.
Antonio Banderas reprises the lead swishy-slashy role and he's clearly a much better actor now than he was first time round.
He's looking a little long in the tooth though, with more chins and wobbly bits than he used to have. If there's a third
instalment, it'll have to follow Zorro's retirement holiday - they could call it The Saga of Zorro - mwahaha.
Catherine Zeta-Jones tries and fails to recapture the zing of Elena that helped to catapult her to stardom - but she's
not bad and the pay cheque will pay for a few incontinence pads for the family. Rufus Sewell is a suitably smarmy
silly-accented villain and 11-year old Adrian Alonso makes a worthy mini-Zorro in his first English speaking role.
Except for the occasional throwaway line, everyone plays it straight, yet due to the wonders of heredity it inherits
its tongue-in-cheek philosophy from the original movie, without having to ram it down our throats. Because of this,
we don't seem to mind that everything is so utterly ludicrous, that Zorro leaps and jumps unnecessarily for show and that
he should have been cut in half years ago - the expectation was set for us beforehand, so we accept it.
Many movie men, particularly marketers, could learn from this - it's an effective way of making a poor movie a lot more
tolerable.
