A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Legend of Zorro

Date Viewed: 10/30/05

Details:

Antonio Banderas

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Rufus Sewell

Michael Emerson

Adrian Alonso

Alberto Reyes

Director: Martin Campbell

Score: 0

The Review: Sequelitis strikes again. A few snappy lines of dialog and even fewer good laughs do not raise Legend above well-deserved mediocrity. Watching some incredible stunts relieves some of the boredom, and Zeta-Jones is absolutely gorgeous, but neither make up for the remaining hour and a half.

Time: perhaps 10 chronological years after the earlier Banderas/Hopkins (1998) Mask of Zorro, and Alejandro and Elena's son Joaquin (Alonso) is now sufficiently grown up to be the local adventuresome show-off and rowdy ("not a bad kid, just over-endowed with energy"). It's 1860 and California is voting to join the union. Not everyone is in favor of this decision, so Zorro arrives in his inimitable way to help prevent voting fraud. This is not quite the plot twist I think of when I think "Zorro", but at least the movie starts off with substantial action. But then goes downhill rapidly. Sewell and Emerson have over-caricatured roles as the pair of villains: one subtle, the other anything but.

Time plays tricks with scriptwriters too: When was the Golden Spike driven? (1869, making transcontinental train rides difficult in earlier times) When was nitroglycerin discovered? (but more to the point, why would you want to extract it from soap?) How many different paranoid conspiracies arose from the Crusades? (you mean besides the Knights Templar?) There are lots of nits to pick with this film, and lots of time and attention on which to spend nit-picking because you're likely not overly engaged with the screen goings-on.

Nice horse; uninspiring plot.

(2-Nov-05)

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