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The Legend Of Zorro Director: Martin Campbell Rated: M Screening from Monday 26 December 
Antonio Banderas returns as a slightly older but equally reckless
and droll Zorro. This time, the ever-oppressed people of California
are trying to enter the American Union as a state, to the displeasure
of insidious southern Confederates and their knavish French patron
Armand (Rufus Sewell). Forever a people's hero, Zorro is determined
to ensure transition to federalism. However, he encounters unexpected
resistance from his wife Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who is frustrated
with his lack of familial concern. At first, Zorro is determined to
remain faithful to his hapless constituents but soon learns public
heroism is useless without a stable family life. This domestic narrative is almost entirely undermined by the unabashed brattishness of Zorro's son Joaquin (Adrian Alonso). Interestingly, the pest resembles his father's other "children": the ever-unfortunate Californians, who are incapable, either socially or through state mechanisms, of helping themselves and are predictably adept at attracting bad luck. In effect, Zorro's altruistic community work only seems to keep the public in a state of hero-dependency. Perhaps the most heroic and constructive deed Zorro could perform would be to stop entirely, forcing them to fend for themselves and adapt to negative realities. A similar call could be made of the entire fictional franchise if the film was not so wonderfully abundant with caricature, dramatically convenient entrances and exits, witty verbal exchanges, and overstuffed explosions. The same time Zorro is on screen attempting to smooth the progress of his people's conversion to Pax Americana, the progress of the shaky narrative in audiences' minds is being smoothed by a torrent of implausible action and sexual allusion. Zorro arguably sits among the more interesting, or at least bearable, heroes because of his exotic historical and ethnic context, as well as the writers' awareness of the pure ridiculousness of him and superhero characters and narrative archetypes in general. They thankfully avoid any attempt at plausibility or sensibleness and mostly remain clear of unselfconscious comic book campness.  |
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