Noë Gold


Thanks to AOL.com for permission to post this.
The Mask of Zorro provides a proper calling card for director Martin Campbell's (GoldenEye) entry into the pantheon of retro action pictures occupied by El Cid and even Spartacus, with surprising ease for the bag-end of the twentieth Century. While Campbell is closer to the mark of Cid's broad-canvas author Samuel Bronston, he certainly could aim for less shabby ones than Spartacus' young turk, Stanley Kubrick.

Which is to say that Zorro is a handsome piece of work for all involved, harking back to an era when swords were meant to be rattled and swashes were meant to be buckled. For Antonio Banderas, the movie is an accomplishment for his ownership of the swashbuckler hero identity. No other Latin has yet inhabited the Latin world's own wild-west hero, and no other actor has yet inhabited the role of Zorro with quite as much verve and enthusiasm as Spaniard Banderas. For Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins, it is a credible moment as well. Hopkins pulls off a number of disguises in this movie, transitioning easily from a closet-Zorro older dad to a haggard prisoner to a manservant to the aging Zorro-mentor he becomes by finish time.

This is also an executive production of Steven Spielberg's which clocks in at a thrill-packed two hours, six minutes. The producer lives up to his usual high standards of sweep and scope. Zorro has the guts and the gumption I like to see in an action pic. The northern Mexico locations with their rich set dressings convey the air of period Alta California. Banderas, Hopkins and the lovely Catherine Zeta-Jones, with their unfettered enthusiasm and humor for the material, invest it with an epic, yet modern sheen. This movie's far better than a trip to Frontierland. I'll have my popcorn sans butter.

 
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