Zorro: The Family Man?
New Legend Makes Zorro a Husband and Father

In The Mask of Zorro, the legendary Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins) took a young drunk (Antonio Banderas) under his wing to teach him the ways of the sword and the whip, in hopes that one day he could take over the mantle of Zorro. After losing his wife, de la Vega had also lost his daughter, Elena, and felt that only by passing on the legend to another could justice be done. Now, some seven years later, The Legend of Zorro is allowed to continue.

The Legend of Zorro
Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Zorro (Antonio Banderas) conspire together in The Legend of Zorro. (Sony, 2005)

Directed by: Martin Campbell
Written by: Roberto Orci (screenplay) & Alex Kurtzman (screenplay)
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Adrian Alonso, and Rufus Sewell

Rated PG (for sequences of violence/peril and action, language and a couple of suggestive moments)
Running time: 129 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 7 out of 10.

Set in the mid-1800s, the new Zorro film begins as the people of California are voting for their territory to become a state of the Union. Don Alejandro de la Vega (Banderas) inherited the mask of Zorro from the previous Don de la Vega, and has continued his swashbuckling heroics for ten years.

Unbeknownst to Alejandro, his face was recognized by some men when his mask came off in the middle of a fight. Those men then approach Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) with the revelation that they know her husband's secret. In exchange for their silence, she is enlisted in their plot to spy on a wealthy count who has arrived in California. Her past connection with Armand (Rufus Sewell) makes her a perfect mole, and not even her husband can know about her secret.

Alejandro had promised Elena he would retire once California has voted for statehood. But when he goes back on his promise, the scene is set for family strife. She blames him for being a poor father to their son Joaquin (Adrian Alonso), who admires the legendary Zorro more than his own father. Shockingly, she requests a divorce. The wedge driving apart Alejandro and Elena affects the whole family and could bring an end to Zorro.

I'm not a big fan of Zorro, but I did enjoy this movie. Like its predecessor, it offered thrilling chases, wonderful swordplay, and a bit of good humor, too. Tornado, Zorro's horse, gets some of the biggest laughs because of its unexpected comedic moments. While the plot of the film is a bit predictable at times, it is still an entertaining and action-packed two hours.

Although the film sometimes seems to try to hard to be a family picture, avoiding scenes of blood and violence, The Legend of Zorro is a worthy follow-up to the 1998 picture The Mask of Zorro. I especially liked the way the film retained Elena's strength of character, allowing her to play a pivotal part in the story without relegating her to the role of wife and mother. Thankfully, the picture did not swing too far in the other direction either. The previews for the film had me thinking that this would be a "Elena and Zorro fight bandits as husband and wife" storyline. After Banderas' work in Spy Kids, it wasn't that hard to stretch the imagination.

James Horner returns to write a score that is a perfect complement to the film. I was glad to hear the familiar music from The Mask of Zorro in this picture. The effects are wonderful, with the exception of the some of the fire effects at the end of the film (which appear to have been digitized). I don't know if it was to reduce the film budget or to protect California from unnecessary fire hazard, but the digitally rendered fire effects were not believable.

Whether Banderas is up to the task is not in doubt. The real question is, why has Sony Pictures kept The Legend of Zorro so quiet? With no big blockbusters (such as Spider-Man) in its schedule this year, Sony should have begun the marketing blitz on this film back during the Super Bowl. I usually hear about films a year or so before they reach the theater, but this one snuck up on me. I first saw the trailer on the Internet about four months ago. It shocked me, because I didn't even know the film was in production. For a new film, this might be expected, but for a sequel to a promising franchise? This is almost unforgivable. It is as if Sony is trying to tank the film before it begins.