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Written by JORDAN GREENBERG
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Friday, 28 October 2005 |
This is the return of the masked hero Zorro. On the eve of California’s induction into the United States of America the dark actions of a mysterious and aged European cult threaten the lives of the poor and downtrodden people of the great western state and the life of their vigilante savior Zorro.
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"The Legend of Zorro"
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 Entertainment
 Art
Directed by Martin Campbell
Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
Starring Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Rufus Sewell
Rated PG for sequences of violence/peril and action, language and a couple of suggestive moments.
Released October 28, 2005 |
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Reuniting Antonio Banderas as the swashbuckler himself and Catherine Zeta Jones as his beautiful and feisty wife Elena, “The Legend of Zorro” suffers from a formulaic and lazy script. With sparse moments of true action and emotion, this sequel is a disappointing follow up to one of the finest films pulled from the vaults of our nostalgic, scripted past.Perhaps doomed from the start, Steven Spielberg was listed among the producers of the original but not this sequel. No doubt a choice spurred by the new production team, “The Legend of Zorro” brought in the writing team behind “Goonies II” in an effort to secure a PG rating. “The Mask of Zorro” was penned by the Disney bred writer Ted Elliot ("Aladdin," "Pirates of the Caribbean") and was given a rating of PG-13. It should have been little surprise then that director Martin Campbell’s ("GoldenEye," "The Mask of Zorro") efforts to show an emotionally conflicted time for the man behind the mask are hampered by the comedy of a five-year-old and he stamps a much too innocent, even campy feel on this sequel. The expansion of the United States into California is a period of history ripe with conflict (real and fictional), but the fight we get to see in “The Legend of Zorro” hinges around the old story of a wife demanding her husband to retire and settle down to care for his family. The director is forced then to waste many feet of film to tell us what we already know. Zorro probably shouldn’t hang up the spurs just yet. Disappointing mostly in that we expected more from this franchise, “The Legend of Zorro” still holds our attention. Catherine Zeta Jones is captivating and Antonio Banderas is exciting to watch as a both a fighter and a lover. In the end, this is not one of those rare sequels that does it better than the original. If there is going to be a third film, it will be necessary to make a man out of Zorro’s child or to put him in boarding school. The producers must see that like all flames, Zorro must breathe to truly be alive and they should take that into consideration when choosing scriptwriters and when shooting for a specific MPAA rating. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
