The Zorro rule of combat goes something like this: If you make your opponent take a really bad pratfall, he will feel too stupid to get back up and kill you.
Zorros are, at heart, peaceful, playful fellows. There are two in "The Mask of Zorro" -- an old Zorro and a young one -- and they face down guns with only a sword, a smile and a great big attitude. But when push comes to shove, they don't want to kill anybody.
Instead they throw guys off water towers, give them a boot in the face or bang two heads together in a subtle homage to Moe of the Three Stooges.
In the first -- and by far the best -- sequence we see the original Zorro, played by Anthony Hopkins, breaking up a firing squad in 1820s California. He goes on to fight an entire army, pausing only for a few breathless seconds so that we see him, on his horse, silhouetted against the sun.
But Hopkins' performance presents a slight problem: The picture asks us to believe that no one has figured out that Zorro and his real-life persona are the same person, even though they are the only guys in Mexico who talk with a British accent.
Aside from the accent, Hopkins might have made a superb Zorro, had the role been offered to him 20 years ago. Zorro is obsessive. He's a man who can keep a secret. He's self-effacing yet has authority. Who better than Hopkins?
Unfortunately, there's only so long that you can ask a serious actor to walk around in a thick black wig and fake goatee. So after the stirring first scenes, 20 years pass, and we're introduced to An-- tonio Banderas as Alejandro, an impetuous bandit.
"The Mask of Zorro," which opens today, is entertaining, but it's about one notch below being something anybody really needs to see. The movie's setup is appealing. Like "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (with Sean Connery and Harrison Ford), it presents the audience with two guys joining to fight evil.
Hopkins is surprisingly good as the older Zorro, macho and sexy in a way not usually associated with him (and considering the gray fright wig he wears for much of the film, that's an accomplishment). He takes in young Alejandro and trains him to be his successor, though this is no kung fu movie: The training lasts about two minutes.
Banderas would seem a natural for Zorro. He's physical. He has grace. He's as handsome as the best- known Zorro, Tyrone Power. But the role, as written, has been robbed of its fun. Usually, the big kick of Zorro is that in his real-life identity, he throws off suspicion by pretending to be an ineffectual, cowardly fop. Douglas Fairbanks, who originated the role, relished that aspect of the character, and so did Power.
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Banderas doesn't get the chance to show what he can do. After the merest feint in that direction -- at a dinner party, pretending to be a Spanish nobleman -- he goes back to being a suave guy, doing an inspired, sensuous tango worthy of Gomez Addams.
His dance partner is the evil former imperial governor's daughter, actually old Zorro's daughter, who was robbed from the cradle. She's played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, and if she were any more beautiful, she would have no appeal at all but would seem like God's practical joke. Zeta-Jones looks like Ava Gardner on the days when Gardner hadn't been drinking the night before.
The story is not important. Set in California, in the days when the territory was still part of Mexico, it deals with a villainous plot to mine gold.
All that matters is that the Zorros have someone good to hate, and they do in Stuart Wilson, who plays the former imperial governor as a cool customer, so used to doing wrong that by now he thinks he's the good guy. You know he won't go down without a fight. Too bad it turns out to be such a long fight.
The clash of swords, the flash of light glinting off steel blades, the leaps, the flips, the tumbles, the ha- ha-ha, you-thought-you-had-me -- it's all very nice. But after 136 minutes, it becomes a bit much.
.jpg)
Zorros are, at heart, peaceful, playful fellows. There are two in "The Mask of Zorro" -- an old Zorro and a young one -- and they face down guns with only a sword, a smile and a great big attitude. But when push comes to shove, they don't want to kill anybody.
Instead they throw guys off water towers, give them a boot in the face or bang two heads together in a subtle homage to Moe of the Three Stooges.
In the first -- and by far the best -- sequence we see the original Zorro, played by Anthony Hopkins, breaking up a firing squad in 1820s California. He goes on to fight an entire army, pausing only for a few breathless seconds so that we see him, on his horse, silhouetted against the sun.
But Hopkins' performance presents a slight problem: The picture asks us to believe that no one has figured out that Zorro and his real-life persona are the same person, even though they are the only guys in Mexico who talk with a British accent.
Aside from the accent, Hopkins might have made a superb Zorro, had the role been offered to him 20 years ago. Zorro is obsessive. He's a man who can keep a secret. He's self-effacing yet has authority. Who better than Hopkins?
Unfortunately, there's only so long that you can ask a serious actor to walk around in a thick black wig and fake goatee. So after the stirring first scenes, 20 years pass, and we're introduced to An-- tonio Banderas as Alejandro, an impetuous bandit.
"The Mask of Zorro," which opens today, is entertaining, but it's about one notch below being something anybody really needs to see. The movie's setup is appealing. Like "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (with Sean Connery and Harrison Ford), it presents the audience with two guys joining to fight evil.
Hopkins is surprisingly good as the older Zorro, macho and sexy in a way not usually associated with him (and considering the gray fright wig he wears for much of the film, that's an accomplishment). He takes in young Alejandro and trains him to be his successor, though this is no kung fu movie: The training lasts about two minutes.
Banderas would seem a natural for Zorro. He's physical. He has grace. He's as handsome as the best- known Zorro, Tyrone Power. But the role, as written, has been robbed of its fun. Usually, the big kick of Zorro is that in his real-life identity, he throws off suspicion by pretending to be an ineffectual, cowardly fop. Douglas Fairbanks, who originated the role, relished that aspect of the character, and so did Power.
.jpg)
Banderas doesn't get the chance to show what he can do. After the merest feint in that direction -- at a dinner party, pretending to be a Spanish nobleman -- he goes back to being a suave guy, doing an inspired, sensuous tango worthy of Gomez Addams.
His dance partner is the evil former imperial governor's daughter, actually old Zorro's daughter, who was robbed from the cradle. She's played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, and if she were any more beautiful, she would have no appeal at all but would seem like God's practical joke. Zeta-Jones looks like Ava Gardner on the days when Gardner hadn't been drinking the night before.
The story is not important. Set in California, in the days when the territory was still part of Mexico, it deals with a villainous plot to mine gold.
All that matters is that the Zorros have someone good to hate, and they do in Stuart Wilson, who plays the former imperial governor as a cool customer, so used to doing wrong that by now he thinks he's the good guy. You know he won't go down without a fight. Too bad it turns out to be such a long fight.
The clash of swords, the flash of light glinting off steel blades, the leaps, the flips, the tumbles, the ha- ha-ha, you-thought-you-had-me -- it's all very nice. But after 136 minutes, it becomes a bit much.
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