Review 156: The Mask of Zorro
The Mask of Zorro is a rousing, poigant and highly entertaining swashbuckler film and arguably the best Zorro movie ever made.Based on Zorro by Johnston McCulley, In 1821, Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins) is a Californio nobleman who defends the Mexican peasants and commoners of California as Zorro, a mysterious swordsman. The corrupt governor of California Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson) learns of de la Vega's alter ego and has him arrested, inadvertently killing de la Vega's wife Esperanza (Julieta Rosen) in the process and taking his infant daughter Elena as his own.
Twenty years later, de la Vega learns that Montero has returned and escapes from prison. He is reunited with Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas) who saved his life when he was a boy whom he takes as his successor and they plan to get revenge on Montero. De la Vega for killing his wife as well as to find Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Alejandro who is pursuing his own vendetta against Montero's right-hand man Cap. Harrison Love (Matt Letscher) who is responsible for killing his brother Joaquin all the while falling in love with Elena.
The plot is a beautifully written tale of revenge and family. It's very old fashioned in its structure.
Zorro is Spanish for "Fox". Foxes are traditionally wiley and clever and that's clearly the metaphor for who this character was as a pulp character because even though he's a fantastic swordsman and used his whip fantastically and stunt rider and atheletic, he also was much more clever about defeating his enemies and humiliating them rather than defeating them with brute force
Revenge: In a sense, The Mask of Zorro is a double revenge story: Both Alejandro and Diago are united in their quest for vegengce against Rafael Montero (governor of California) and his henchman. It's both of their primary driving forces throughout the film. One of the many joys of this film is seeing Diago teach Alejandro how to take that revenge with honour and live to celebrate it.
Family: The relationship between
The theme of Legacy is also prominant throughout the film; The whole crux of the film is about Diego grooming Alejandro to be his sucessor.
Director Martin Campbell's direction is electric, the cinematography is beautiful and captures the beauty of 1800's California and the lush sense of period, the production design (recreating early 1800's California) is splendid and richly detailed, the costumes are colourful (the people of California dress in bright vibrent colours and the Zorro costumes worn by Alejandro and Diego have very clear Spanish and Mexican influences respectively).
The action scenes are excellent, the locations are marvellous, The action scenes and sword fights in particular are well choreographed and exciting to watch, the score by James Horner is magnificently thematic and beautifully evokes the films Spanish influence, the make up is rich, the props are terrific and the ending has a wonderfuly touching sense of poigency about it.
There's also a lot of humor in the film, most of which comes from the teacher/student - surrogate father/son relationship between Diego and Alejandro.
Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins & Catherine Zeta-Jones are stupendous in their roles,
Anthony Hopkins playing Don Diego de la Vega giving the weight and nobility the character (as well as the film) requires. He's an older, aged Zorro whose ready to retire and settle down with his wife and newborn daughter Elena and then, quite unexpectedly, the rug is pulled out from under him and he spends the next 20 years in prison after Rafael deduces his identity. He is this very wise, skillful man who's trying to teach the down on his luck Alejandro
Antonio Banderas Alejandro is very much a man of the people. Going from an orphan to a bandit to Diego's protege making for a truly magnificently uplifting character arc.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is luminous and lovely playing Elena, Elena has grown up into a beautiful, graceful, compasionate young woman with no knowledge of her true parentage.
Stuart Wilson makes for a stupendous villain as Don Rafael Montero. As the original Zorro, Diego bedeviled his rule of Mexico. After deducing his true idenity, his hatred for Diego only intensifies and he sets out to ruin his fellow Don's life and take everything from him.
In spite of his dastardly nature, the love that he has for Elena is genuine and he does everything within his power to keep her out of his plots. He's built up as a tragically misguided man who has been thrown out of Mexico and sent back to Spain. When he returns to California from his exile he actually believes that he can deliver to the people. He doesn't want power for the sake of it, he just wants to be remembered
Unfortunately, that love falls apart when he deliberatly keeps the knowledge of what he did to her parents from him
He loved Diago's wife, Esperanza even though she wanted nothing to do with him.
Not lagging far behind Wilson is Matt Letscher as Cap. Harrison Love, Montero's right hand man and captain of his army. He is such a bastard in the various ways that he gets his hands dirty to carry out Rafael's bidding. Despite his alligence, it becomes abundently clear throughout that he's in only for the pay and the chance to collect trophies and doesn't really care about Montero's plan in the slightest as clearly demonstrated when he continuously responds to his employer with cold indifference. He's this straight back military man with a warped sense of honor.
5/5.
The Anonymous Critic.
Anthony Hopkins playing Don Diego de la Vega giving the weight and nobility the character (as well as the film) requires. He's an older, aged Zorro whose ready to retire and settle down with his wife and newborn daughter Elena and then, quite unexpectedly, the rug is pulled out from under him and he spends the next 20 years in prison after Rafael deduces his identity. He is this very wise, skillful man who's trying to teach the down on his luck Alejandro
Antonio Banderas Alejandro is very much a man of the people. Going from an orphan to a bandit to Diego's protege making for a truly magnificently uplifting character arc.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is luminous and lovely playing Elena, Elena has grown up into a beautiful, graceful, compasionate young woman with no knowledge of her true parentage.
Stuart Wilson makes for a stupendous villain as Don Rafael Montero. As the original Zorro, Diego bedeviled his rule of Mexico. After deducing his true idenity, his hatred for Diego only intensifies and he sets out to ruin his fellow Don's life and take everything from him.
In spite of his dastardly nature, the love that he has for Elena is genuine and he does everything within his power to keep her out of his plots. He's built up as a tragically misguided man who has been thrown out of Mexico and sent back to Spain. When he returns to California from his exile he actually believes that he can deliver to the people. He doesn't want power for the sake of it, he just wants to be remembered
Unfortunately, that love falls apart when he deliberatly keeps the knowledge of what he did to her parents from him
He loved Diago's wife, Esperanza even though she wanted nothing to do with him.
Not lagging far behind Wilson is Matt Letscher as Cap. Harrison Love, Montero's right hand man and captain of his army. He is such a bastard in the various ways that he gets his hands dirty to carry out Rafael's bidding. Despite his alligence, it becomes abundently clear throughout that he's in only for the pay and the chance to collect trophies and doesn't really care about Montero's plan in the slightest as clearly demonstrated when he continuously responds to his employer with cold indifference. He's this straight back military man with a warped sense of honor.
5/5.
The Anonymous Critic.
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