Released: July 17, 1998

Version: Video

Length: Approx. 137 minutes

Rated: PG-13

Main Cast: Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones, Stuart Wilson, Matthew Letscher

This is a great sword-fighting movie! If you like to see fencing, then get this movie or "The Princess Bride."

We begin by seeing Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) walk onto the screen and cut a flaming "Z." Then we go to some really little. You kind of need it to understand the time and place of the movie. Unfortunately, you’d need a huge set to actually read what the text says. I got some of it by squinting…

The first big scene is a large crowd shouting and pushing some guards. It looks like a barely-contained riot. We learn that it’s a crowd that doesn’t want to see some of their people hung. The evil-doer, Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson), has three or four people taken at random from the crowd to be hung to lure Zorro out. Zorro rescues them and gives the Don something to remember him by. Then he leaves on his horse, Tornado. (Well, I skipped a major plot point…some kids save Zorro from some snipers by pushing a statue onto them and thus, Zorro gives them a nice silver necklace.)

Anyway, somehow Zorro was harmed in the fight. I don’t know if they show how it happened or not. I do know that I somehow missed it. Well, Zorro goes home to his wife and daughter and tells his baby about his adventures. Then he and the missus decide to get all kissy-faced and find themselves looking at Rafael. We don’t know how Rafael discovered that Don Diego de la Vega is Zorro, but he did. There’s a slight scuffle and Vega’s wife is killed while trying to protect her hubby. Rafael burns the house, takes Vega’s baby and has him put in jail/dungeon. Then Rafael goes back to Spain. (They’re in California right now.)

Twenty years pass, and Rafael returns. He looks in the dungeon to see if Zorro is alive and finds nothing. Zorro was there, and when he sees Rafael, he decides to escape.

In the meantime, the two boys that had helped Zorro have turned into horse thieves and we see them bound and being dragged behind someone known as Three-Fingered Jack (L.Q. Jones). The thieves are known as the Murrieta brothers (Victor Rivers & Antonio Banderas). Anyway, they’re taken to the authorities and it ends up being a trick. They take the reward and tie the officials up and leave with Jack, their accomplice. Unfortunately, they run into more soldiers. They’re led by Capt. Harrison Love (Matthew Letscher). Jack and one of the brothers are "killed". Banderas/Alejandro Murrieta escapes.

Vega finds Alejandro trying to sell his necklace to buy booze. Vega takes Alejandro under his wing to teach him the skills to survive and fight properly so that he can be the next Zorro. This sequence is funny and interesting. Vega is cryptic and Alejandro is pathetic. It’s great stuff.

Eventually, Alejandro sees a horse he wants and decides to steal it. He ends up fighting a bunch of people in the barracks for it and eventually he blows the barracks up on accident. This is quite humorous.

Anyway, Zorro meets up with Elena Montero (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Every time she sees him, you can tell she lusts for him. That’s nasty! They just see each other in passing…then they meet up in a confessional where Zorro is hiding. We find out this movie’s morals about sin/lust here and they stink!

Then Vega decides to teach Alejandro to be a gentleman so that he can infiltrate a party being thrown by Rafael. They do this to find out what Rafael is up to. They find that Montero is going to try to buy California from Santa Anna. We also find out that Capt. Love is practically a body guard of Montero. And we see a dance scene with Banderas and Zeta-Jones.

The following day, Rafael takes the Dons to see the mine. While there, Alejandro sees Three-Fingered Jack and watches him get killed. At this time, the viewer sees that Capt. Love suspects Alejandro for who he is. Thus, he is invited to Love's office for a drink.

Well, I think I’ve told enough about the plot. Elena thinks she’s Rafael’s daughter. One of Vega’s main goals is to rectify that. Eventually, he does…and the bad guys are stopped in a nice long fight scene. Also, the mine (which is where Montero was getting the money to pay Santa Anna with) is destroyed…right after Zorro et al frees the slaves/prisoners that were doing the digging. Why did they need to be freed? Because they were going to get blown up with the mine! (And because they were being forced to work against their will...with no pay...etc.)

This movie is one that I enjoy. There’s not loads of swearing even though it seems there ought to be considering the rating. The rating seems to refer to the violence. See it if you like action movies!

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