I just watched The Legend of Zorro and thought I would review it for your reading pleasure. :-)
1 happy thought: it’s almost completely amoral, artistically and philosophically terrible, but thoroughly charming. There was a marriage subplot kind of like in Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Incredibles. There were adventure/chase scenes straight out of Indiana Jones. Zorro rescued a baby from a burning barn just like Spiderman rescued a baby from a burning house. Zorro and his rival actually jousted for Elena’s love during a polo match. There was this strong high-class theme, kind of like the Scarlet Pimpernel, where de la Vega pretends to be wimpy and then at night he turns into Zorro. Overall, it was—well, it was kind of like Napoleon Dynamite only with (quite well executed, if completely snipagated) fights instead of dumb moments.
Stuff and nonsense: Well, Catherine Zeta-Jones stays clad the entire movie. The men involved don’t exactly, but still, I was quite proud of them. And there wasn’t much language. But it had issues….
Yeah. You’ve got the scuzzy blond villain who does all his enormities in the name of the Lord, the priest who’s a good guy but not remotely Christian (nor Spanish, despite the attempted accent), the son who’s an adorable little terror (like Ramses from the Amelia books) and has good aim with a slingshot, the evil butler who has a metal hook for a hand, and the mad scientist who’s also the wife’s love interest.
They tried to cram into this one movie finishing school, the Civil War, marital tension, a spy movie, soap, and these random guys from the proto-CIA who try and make the wife get a divorce so she can be their spy: or maybe they were from the CIA and the movie directors didn’t know it hadn’t been invented yet. There were an impressive number of anachronisms. I think the only cliché they missed was making the current villain the previous movie’s villain’s brother, but at least he looked like him.
5 warm fuzzies for its audacious plot blend and occasional moments. “You do have your moments: not many of them, but you do have them.”
6 bloody daggers for some swordplay almost as good as in Pirates—and borrowed directly from it—as well as most of the fight scenes from the first Zorro movie, a joust from Knight’s Tale, a train-top fight like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a wide variety of explosions, and some martial artsy warrior-chica scenes.
It was, in fact, a very bad movie, but I really enjoyed it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Pirates had one scene of really good swordplay - the rest was rather rehashed. I tend to like the older stuff (like Rathbone and Flynn) better, anyway.
Your review resonated with other negative ones I've read... oh well, at least Zorro didn't get any Razzies. :)
I just like that beautiful dramatic swashbuckling swordplay, like in Pirates and Princess Bride. :-)
Post a Comment