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Z marks the spot
by CarlosC (movies profile)
Feb 14, 2007
19
of
23 people found this review helpful
Sir Anthony Hopkins is Zorro, in Martin Campbell's 1998 movie about the Latin swashbuckler, once portrayed in 1940s serials by such actors as Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Tyronne Power -- and by George Hamilton and Frank Langella, in later films. Antonio Banderas (Desperado) plays a common bandit who wants to avenge his brother's murder at the hands of a villainous captain (Matthew Letscher), and gets his chance to do it when Hopkins hand-picks him as the next man to wear THE MASK OF ZORRO, in this action blockbuster by that name.
Beneath THE MASK OF ZORRO are two men ultimately driven by personal passions to self-appointed missions, only coincidentally righting social injustices and winning the hearts of the people, along the way. As already noted, the younger Zorro (Banderas) is out to revenge a brother (Victor Rivers, who sort of resembles Banderas)'s murder. But, it is the elder Zorro (Sir Anthony) who sets things in motion when he escapes from jail to find that the governor who put him there for twenty years (Stuart Wilson, who sort of resembles F. Murray Abraham) has killed his wife, and raised Zorro's daughter as his own (she is played by a "pre-Michael-Douglas" Catherine Zeta Jones; her middle name, incidentally, means "Z" in Spanish).
Zorro is like BATMAN on horseback. A wealthy sophisticate by day, he whiles his private hours in a cave under his mansion, training like an Olympic athlete, and starching his always immaculate cape. He even gets to light up his own sign (a flaming "Z" emblazoned on a rooftop to herald his return). Like the modern 'Caped Crusader,' Zorro is driven by personal obsessions to don the mask and robe. Of course, there is also a Robin Hood streak in Zorro -- especially, living in a time when great barons wheel and deal while the poor and uneducated native population watch their land and hard work enrich somebody else. THE MASK OF ZORRO trumps the social injustice card often, never missing a chance to show us sooty-faced infants extracting gold from the Spaniards' mines.
But, it is the personalized injustice that wins us over to Zorro's cause -- especially, the wrongs committed against Zorro Emeritus, Hopkins. If Hopkins is the most sympathetic figure, the ruthless captain who keeps the head of Antonio Banderas' brother in a jar to taunt him with it, is the most loathsome one. The Matthew Letscher character is the kind of villain that audiences will love to jeer. There is no depth to such a character, but he helps to keep the action focused on what isn't a very simple plot -- it involves at various times, California's colonial status, the discovery of gold there in the 1800s, and Generalissimo Santa Ana. But as a pure action vehicle, THE MASK OF ZORRO lives up to its antecedents, especially the feel and spirit of the 1940s serials that inspired it.
Still riding the waves he made in TITANIC and DEEP IMPACT in 1998, James Horner adds the requisite flourishes with his musical score. But, Anthony Hopkins stands out with a compelling performance as the elder Zorro, in what some may have expected to be a throw-away role to make way for Banderas to step into the part. The sparks between Banderas and Zeta Jones, and the frequent humor of the film, make for nice finishing touches, too.
(Carlos Colorado) |
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