The Mask of Zorro

Note to self: Always go with your gut instinct...

I had no intentions of seeing this movie, mainly because it was supposed to come out last winter, and when movies get bumped like that, it's usually for a good reason (Titanic being a notable exception, Alien Resurrection being a perfect example). However, a couple people I know raved about this movie, and the winter movie lineup last year was a pretty fierce bunch (Titanic, Good Will Hunting, As Good as It Gets, Scream 2), so I could understand why Sony moved this movie. Now that I've seen it, I REALLY understand why they moved this movie. It would have been blown out of the theaters.

This is what I would classify as a BSITT movie (Best Shots In the Trailer), and it made the actual movie, the director's cut as it were, pretty uneventful. Anthony Hopkins is Don De la Vega, or something, and the acting Zorro. But he's also a family man who's looking to hang up his blade and raise his newborn daughter. It is that this point that the evil governor of what is now California finds Zorro's lair, kills his wife (who was the only woman the governor loved), steals his daughter, burns his house down and puts him in jail.

Cut to twenty years later, where Alejandro Murrierto (Antonio Banderas) and his brother, two very successful thieves, finally get trapped by the cavalry. Banderas gets away, but his brother is captured and, rather than surrender, kills himself. Hopkins, meanwhile, escapes from prison, not unlike the way he escaped in Silence of the Lambs, and runs into a very drunk Banderas, desperate to kill the evil white man who shot his brother. Hopkins recognizes him as the boy who saved his life way back when Zorro foiled an execution attempt, and realizes he's found his replacement. Sound formula? I haven't even gotten started.

The whole time I was watching this, I was thinking to myself, "This is the place where a clueless heir apparent learns the art of swordplay." "This is the part where there's a big dinner at the governor's mansion, and the new Zorro goes undercover." "This is the part where Banderas romances the governor's (actually Hopkins') daughter Elena (devastatingly beautiful newcomer Catherine Zeta Jones)." And finally, "This is the part where Zorro is surrounded by men with guns who for some reason don't shoot him." It wasn't boring, but I wasn't surprised by anything at all throughout. Like I said, the best shots were in the trailer, they left very little other stuff to enjoy.

The acting was fine, I guess. Hopkins finds a away to rise above any material, and he does so here as well. Banderas does okay, but like Alec Baldwin in The Edge, it's pretty tough to just stay even against Hopkins, much less outshine him. Jones didn't have much of a part to work with, but the camera loves her. Or maybe it's just me...

Wheh Banderas has his final duel with the officer, I was waiting for him to start shouting "HELLO, my name is Alejandro Murrierta. You killed my brother. Prepare to die!" If he had, I would have given this movie an extra star for that alone. But I wound up feeling the same way about this as I did about director Martin Campbell's last effort, GoldenEye. It all looked fine, but I've seen it all before. And I mean ALL of it before. The swordplay was excellent, but you expect it to be. It's a Zorro movie. If you haven't seen this movie already, it's probably because you were a little unsure about it, as was I. Trust that instinct.