Whips! Swords! Action!: A Mask of Zorro Review
THE MASK OF ZORRO
(1998)
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Directed by: Martin Campbell.
Rated: PG-13.
The first time I ever saw The Mask of Zorro I was eleven years old. Impressionable, bright-eyed, and predisposed to love any film that featured horses, sword fights, and vigilante heroes in black capes (my passion for Batman was in full force at this point). So of course I absolutely adored The Mask of Zorro when it hit theatres. I bought it on VHS as soon as it was available, I watched it more than a dozen times and memorized the best one-liners, and I can clearly recall practising the sword fights with my pal Christian. This film carries a fine patina of childhood love and nostalgia for Angie B.
Last Friday, I found myself watching the Fox saving the day again. I haven't seen this movie in at least six years, and I realized something surprising:
Zorro is STILL AWESOME (and hotter than ever, now that I'm not an eleven-year-old girl).
The film opens when the original Zorro (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins) is saving the day -- and a few men about to be executed in front of an unruly crowd of unhappy commoners -- and sticking it to Da Man, who is embodied by the villianous Don Montero (Stuart Wilson). Zorro is basically the epitome of awesome, swinging about on his whip (Indian Jones, eat your heart out), carving Z's in the neck of his mortal enemy, and winning the love and support of the poor he defends, including two young boys who save his life and win a fancy silver medallion in return.
But poor Zorro has tasted his last moment of victory and admiration: Don Montero has figured out his true identity as the nobleman Don Deigo de la Vega, and appears at his home that night to arrest him. In the fight that ensues, Don de la Vega loses both his wife Esperanza and his baby daughter Elena, who is kidnapped by Montero to be raised as his own. The heartbroken Zorro is then carted off to a prison/insane asylum, where he spends the next twenty years rotting in loneliness and despair.
Cut to twenty years later, as California is about to break away from Mexico and declare independence. Don Montero, who has spent the interim in Spain, returns, giving de la Vega the motivation to break out of prison. The now elderly Zorro soon realizes that in order to defeat the new and shadowy plans of his archenemy, and enact his long-delayed revenge, he will need a protege: and thus enters one of the boys who saved him so many years before, now grown into a rough rebel and thief and in need of his own revenge. Alejandro Murrieta (Banderas) has just seen his beloved brother Joaquin die because of the vicious Captain Love (Matt Letscher), and is desperate to avenge him. It's not long before Deigo has taken him under his wing, schooling him in the arts of swordfighting and etiquette to enable him to infiltrate the gilded world of Don Montero.
Sir Anthony STILL has it going on, whooo!
And OF COURSE, things are further complicated by the introduction of Elena (Zeta-Jones), the daughter of de la Vega who has been raised as Montero's and has no inkling of her "father"'s truly villianous ways and treatment of the poor. Sparks instantly fly between her and the new Zorro, while her real father wishes only to show her the truth and whisk her off to safety.
DAMMIT, CATHERINE, WHY ARE YOU SO BEAUTIFUL?
This film? Is pure fun. Sure, it's not exactly as ground-breaking or critically-acclaimed as Citizen Kane, but it's a popcorn action flick that hits all the right notes. The acting is decent, the cast is fantastic, the chemistry between the leads is sizzling (even Sir Hopkins and Banderas have fire and pizzazz in their scenes together), the music exciting and memorable, and the choreography in the action scenes is just dazzling. The sword work in this film is ASTOUNDING; some of the best I've seen in any movie. Considering how swashbuckling Zorro is, this was clearly what they needed to spend the most time and effort on, and they whole-heartedly succeeded on that count.
Zorro to Captain Love: Bitch, I will cut you.
Not only is this a really good action flick, it's also a wonderfully sexy film. You can practically feel the heat of California/the Latino culture sizzling on the screen. The costumes are gorgeous, the cast pretty damn beautiful, and the scenes between Zeta-Jones and Banderas are smokin'. Every look between them, every witty quip, is full of smoldering heat and tension, and then there's THE DANCE SCENE. Say what you will about which culture has the best dances: the Spanish have some of the sexiest dances ever, especially when they're performed by people who look like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas.
...I seem to have lost my train of thought.
The irony of the casting doesn't escape me: two-thirds of the leads are British actors playing at being Spanish. Sir Anthony Hopkins as the very Spanish Don Deigo de la Vega is a bit odd -- those piercing blue eyes and that refined English accent never came from Spain -- and while Catherine Zeta-Jones is obviously Latin in her looks, she was born and raised in Wales. BUT WHO CARES? Sir Anthony is a stellar actor, as everyone knows, Zeta-Jones is drop-dead gorgeous, and you have to suspend disbelief when you have so much pretty and horseback chases going on.
Brits really can do anything.
Zorro is a hero who's become something of a legend and stands tall among the likes of Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Indiana Jones, and Batman. He's a master of disguise and skilled in a variety of fighting techniques, is incredibly intelligent and maintains a vast network of friends and supporters, has a secret lair where he trains, and defends the weak, poor, and voiceless. The Mask of Zorro does an admirable job of expanding the mythos of the Fox and staying true to the spirit of the previous films and stories. There's just something so fun and exciting about watching a film that comes equipped with a built-in mythos and legend.
And then there's the comedy; this is quite a funny movie. There are some wonderful one-liners and quips, the situational comedy is grand, and Banderas displays some impressive comedic timing and expressions. Intermixed with the breathless action are some fun fights full of slapstick, and much fun is had at Zorro's expense as he comes into his own under the previous Zorro's tutelage. I love the dialogue in The Mask of Zorro -- it's incredibly quotable and snarky, and y'all know how much I love snark from my dashing heroes.
But what I love the most about The Mask of Zorro is how deftly it combines all of these elements into a solid, entertaining movie. It seems that in the past ten years, action films have lost the sense of fun they used to have. Today's action flicks are typically more focused on elaborate violence or take themselves far too seriously. This isn't to say anything against the intelligent, nuanced films like The Bourne Identity or Casino Royale, which are technically and artistically superior to popcorn flicks like The Mask of Zorro. But I do miss the days when action films could be breathtaking, exciting AND funny and light-hearted. The Mask of Zorro toes the line between cornball and clever, but it never loses sight of being fun. And that, my dears, is quite refreshing: a film that doesn't have pretensions and is content to simply entertain.
Zorro: Champion of the little man and favourite of the ladies,
just as any good masked hero should be.
On a scale of 1 to 10: The Mask of Zorro slashes and sashays its way to a solid 7.
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