Mask of Zorro, The (1998)

reviewed by
Ted Prigge


THE MASK OF ZORRO (1998)
A Film Review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge

Director: Martin Campbell Writers: Terry Rossio, Ted Elliott, and John Eskow Starring: Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones, Stuart Wilson, Matthew Letscher, Tony Amendola, Pedro Armendáriz Jr., L.Q. Jones, Maury Chaykin, Julieta Rosen

"The Mask of Zorro" is like all of the old classic swashbucklers of the 20s and 30s: action-packed, filled with lots of melodrama, seeming with characters we either love or hate, marvelously entertaining, and instantly forgettable. I can't remember a lot of my reactions to this film as I watched, and perhaps thinking about it a bit, I could probably point out several things that I didn't like about it. But all I remember is that for 2 hours plus, I was glued to the screen, swept up in the melodrama, and had a big smile on my face the entire time. Afterwards, it was more of a grimace, but what are you gonna do?

Zorro is the latest of the classics of either TV or movies to be rehashed by Hollywood and spit at the American Moviegoing Public, and luckily enough Zorro's one that even I'd want to remake. Basically, Zorro's a big showman. He doesn't just punish the wicked and return faith to the downtrodden like a modern-day Mexican Robin Hood; he's got to do some mugging, which is why he's such an interesting legend. But this film actually gives us not one but two Zorros, not to chose from, but to see the torch being passed from one to another.

The film begins with the first Zorro, really a reclusive land owner named Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins, sans Mexican accent), who rides to town every now and then to help the poor and battle his tryannical politician enemy, Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson, the baddie from "Lethal Weapon 3," if you can at all remember him), then returns to his villa on the edge of a cliff to be with his wife, Esperanza (Julieta Rosen), and his newborn baby girl. We are introduced to him when his fame has already presided him, and after one big, very satisfying action sequence towards the begining (glad to see Mr. Hopkins' stunt man is finally getting some work), he is discovered by Rafael, his wife is accidentally shot, his baby is stolen by Rafael, and he is sent to prison for the rest of his life.

Jump about 20 years and Rafael is now returning to power again, this time to end the long running war with Santa Anna over the property of California. Now enter con man Alejandro Murrieta (Anthony Hopkins), who seeks revenge on an evil general of Montero's, Captain Harison Love (Matthew Letscher), who kills his brother towards the beginning (sorta). Luckily, Diego has escaped from prison, and upon stumbling into Alejandro at a bar, he decides that his fiery intensity, if properly trained, will result in a redux of Zorro-dom, since he's way too old, but he still wants to get revenge on Rafael and maybe introduce himself to his daughter, Elena (a lusty and wonderfully-acting Catherine Zeta Jones), who's now much older not to mention much more, well, buxom.

So goes the backstory to "The Mask of Zorro," and you can easily see how melodramatic this all is, and how things will get even more melodramatic as Alejandro learns how to fight and become suave (the film stages a massive "Pygmalion"-esque sequence of him learning to fight, yet skips everything about him learning to pass as a member of the Mexican aristocracy). Things become a tad more complicated as Alejandro starts posing as a politician of sorts, and learns of some major political corruptedness. Anyways, it's all there just to involve the audience with a simple story of passionate revenge, learning how to obtain dignity, and standing up against the unjust. And it's all just fun stuff because, unlike many films, the characters we're supposed to like are very likable, and the characters we're not supposed to like are very unlikable. Just like the old movies.

The film's one major flaw may just be that it's trying to be everything, and in the pursuit of telling a story, it denies the one thing that the film really honestly needs: Zorro. The character only pops up every now and then, more and more towards the end, and the first times that Banderas dons the costume and persona of the famous rebel are wonderfully awkward, but eventually Banderas becomes Zorro. When he finally gets it right, it's just amazing stuff. Banderas has proved himself to a few moviegoers, mostly those who actually saw "Desperado" (one of the, like, billion films he made in the fall of '95), that he's a suave, lovable, and wonderful comic actor, capable of perhaps becoming one of the most likable graceful action stars since Douglas Fairbanks (Sr.). He has the kind of radiance that lets the audience know that he's having lots of fun and the gracefulness to be awe-inspiring and just plain lovable. When he finally discovers Zorro in himself, it just proves what the trailers suggested: Antonio Banderas was born to play this role. And he should do it agian, for God's sake.

But the part of this film that really won me over was not Banderas's Zorro, but Anthony Hopkins' Diego, a man who could have just been a simple character, bent on revenge, but is instead portrayed as an emotionally complex individual, thanks to Hopkins, who plays him with a mix of mystery and sadness. We never know what really made his character become Zorro in the first place, but Hopkins hints at in his acting and makes everything just seem real. If Zorro is the reason you're seeing it in the first place, Diego should be the reason you feel something emotionally.

However bold Hopkins' performance is, he never lets this film become heavy handed, and his brooding never overblows the fact that this film is simply just good old American entertainment. There's no message, no dark undertones, and the depth is kept to a minimum. I could probably easily complain that these are faults in the production and that I want to see big budget Hollywood event pics, such as this, become "smarter"...but I won't, because in all reality, I don't want all of them to be like that. "The Mask of Zorro" is not a dumb film, but it's not a terribly brilliant film and that's all right. It's escapism at its purist because it recognizes that sometimes the most entertaining films are those that simply tell a good story and tell it with interesting characters and lots of passion.

MY RATING (out of 4): ***

Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/


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