1) The prologue for the film establishes a lot of things well right off the bat.
The two brothers of Alejandro and Joaquin/their admiration of Zorro.
The conflict of the community.
Diego’s conflict with Don Rafael
Pacing, fun, and swashbuckling adventure.
It’s always good to have a solid start to your film under your belt and The Mask of Zorro does just that.
2) Governor Rafael Montero – as portrayed by Stuart Wilson – is a surprisingly compelling villain.
He is definitely a man who sees himself as the hero of his own story, which (unless you’re The Joker) always makes for the most interesting types of villains. He has a sense of honor and etiquette to him, but more than that pride and desire for stature. These two contrasting lines explain who he is perfectly:
Rafael [before he is about to hang three men and has the children escorted away]: “Children should never have to see the things we do.”
Rafael [after being asked who the men being hanged are]: “No idea. Three peasants pulled at random from a crowd.”
He sees himself as moral but is willing to murder three innocent men just to get at Zorro. It is a clear and early way of establishing just how villainous Rafael is.
3) Anthony Hopkins as Diego de la Vega, the first Zorro.
My biggest problem with this film is how it white washes certain characters. I’m grateful that Antonio Banderas is the main Zorro, but Hopkins Welsh heritage always distracted me a little from his portrayal of Zorro.
That’s not to say he’s not good in the role, because he’s damn good. The sense of adventure and fun Hopkins is able to establish at the start of the film, the willingness to do what’s right for the people of California, just creates a sadder juxtaposition later in the film when Diego has lost that. Hopkins is able to play all theses facets of de la Vega well. Nothing ever seems one hundred percent separated from the rest; he’s able to show off the former Zorro’s development masterfully. Later he’ll show off a different kind of emotion, but more on that once we meet Catherine Zeta Jones.
4) Diego and his wife Esperanza are given a strong relationship that the audience is invested in within a minute of meeting them.
Too bad they almost immediately fridged her.
5) Antonio Banderas as Alejandro Murrieta.
In most Zorro stories, it is Diego de la Vega who is the main Zorro. This film went against tradition, having an aged de la Vega train newbie Alejandro Murrieta. And I have to say I think that is a decision which works amazingly. Almost as a precursor to Batman Begins (I’m going to be making a fair amount of Batman comparisons, and I’ll say why later), we get to see this rugged and defeated man become the icon the world knows and loves. Banderas brings a roguish/devilish charm to the part which is there from beginning to end. He’s a scoundrel! We get to see him go from someone who is proud and arrogant (and fucking fun to watch) to a more humble servant of the people. He starts his mission in a desire to avenge his murdered brother (who we met in the beginning of the film), and he wasn’t even the favored of the two when Zorro met them as children (Diego having given a token to Joaquin Murrieta) but it is the transformation PAST vengeance which makes him so interesting. And I just LOVE Banderas in the part. He is just perfectly cast as the title character and services the film as well as the film services him.
6) I love this.
Cpt. Love [before killing Joaquin]: “I want you to know I consider this an honor.”
[Joaquin spits at Cpt. Love and shoots himself, depriving him of that “honor”.]
That is like the biggest, “fuck you,” Joaquin can give the guy and I think it’s great.
7) So after one of Rafael’s guards accidentally shoots de la Vega’s wife (and after Rafael kills the guard because he “loved” Esperanza), Rafael kidnaps Zorro’s baby girl Elena and raises her as his own. When we first see Elena with Rafael as an adult, treating him like her real dad only with Diego looking on in secret…
(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)
8) The relationship with Alejandro and Diego is established almost immediately upon their encounter in the present day, serving as one of the best parts of the film.
I think – asides from Diego’s devotion for his daughter Elena – it is the strongest relationship in the film. There is a fun banter between the two, and while it’s obvious Alejandro learns from Diego it is Diego who finds some of his humanity/old ways because of Alejandro. I love of a good bromance and I’ll be damned if this ain’t one.
9) The chemistry between Elena and Alejandro (and by extension, Zeta Jones and Banderas) is apparent from the moment they meet and absolutely oozing! There is a very specific scene later on which I’ll analyze which shows this better than any other.
10) Alejandro’s whole first outing as Zorro – where he gets his own horse and has to fight off the guards, letting the world know Zorro is back – is absolutely amazing. It’s well choreographed, features enticing action, and is just plain out fun!
11) So it is right after this scene that I realized this film and Ant-Man have the same plot: A former masked hero trains a thief to take on his mantle for the greater good. The thief falls in love with the man’s daughter, who the man has grown apart from after his wife’s death and wishes to grow closer to.
12) Catherine Zeta Jones as Elena.
If you want to figure out Elena’s character and journey throughout this film, look no further than this line:
Elena: “I try to behave properly, the way my father would like me to, but I’m afraid my heart is wild.”
There is this incredible disassociation of identity between who Elena is and who she has been told she is: she is not the daughter of some proper governor and his equally proper wife, she’s the daughter of Zorro and the woman who loved him greatly and was as wild as her. As the film goes on, she learns that she can be fiercer. That she can give into her wildness and have it be okay. The more she does that, the more interesting she becomes. So throughout the film you start with a proper governor’s daughter and by the end you have a swashbuckling heroine who helps saves dozens of people. And Zeta Jones portrays this development and all facets of Elena’s character marvelously.
13) It is amazing seeing Alejandro as a gentlemen. Banderas is able to portray this new false-side of Alejandro while still keeping it the roguish devil we’ve come to love in the first half of the film. There’s no divide here, Banderas marries the two well.
14) Bernardo – the alias Diego takes while pretending to be Alejandro’s servant – is the traditional name of Zorro’s servant in most of the stories he’s featured in and (in a lot of ways) the inspiration to Batman’s Alfred. In fact, Batman was pretty much totally inspired by Zorro. Without Zorro there would be no Batman. Batman – you might say – started out as Zorro fan fiction. A rich man who is sick of injustice and so disguises himself in black with the aid of his servant to fight for the people of his city. That’s both Batman and Zorro.
15) Elena’s fierceness is already starting to shine through when she argues how Zorro is a hero for the people. Of course her father has to ruin it with a sexist shit of a remark.
Rafael: “A woman’s grasp of politics, what can I say?”
(GIF originally posted by @fitzsimmonsies)
16) THIS! FREAKING! TANGO!
There is such INTENSE chemistry between Alejandro and Elena in this scene. The passion, the choreography, the energy, it even gets me hot and bothered. They’re both letting out their wild side and showing off just how attracted they are too each other. I fucking love it.
17) The scene at the gold mine…
This is such a heartbreaking and sad scene of abuse and heartache, and the Dons just laugh it off as nothing. Just like buying a crane or something. Their things, not people to them. Alejandro’s former gang member – Jack – sums it up perfectly.
Jack: “I steal gold, I steal money, but you! You steal people’s lives!”
And then after they kill him for this all the Dons laugh as if it’s nothing. It just turns my stomach and makes my skin crawl, which is exactly what it’s supposed to do.
18) The scene where Diego and Elena meet and talk is so sad and so telling. Diego gets to be a father to Elena for a moment, to help her in her moments of doubt and insecurity, even if she doesn’t know it. And it’s the fact she doesn’t know it which makes it so sad but also – by the end of the film – you’re glad that they had this moment together.
19) This makes me want to vomit.
Elena [about her mother, according to her father]: “She was very proper, my mother. Always appropriate.”
And it’s not Elena that disgusts me, it’s Rafael. Rafael, the man who claimed to love Esperanza so much he did not really accept her as who she was and insults her memory by lying about who she is to her own daughter. Just so she can fit some macho bullshit sexist image of her he has in his mind. Just so she can be a “proper woman” after death when she wasn’t in live. I’m getting sick just thinking about it.
20) Were you wondering what Cpt. Love did with Joaquin’s dead body? No? Too bad!
He drinks water held in the same jar as Joaquin’s head and hand because he thinks it gives him the strength of his enemy.
21) It is after these pair of scenes – the gold mine and the meeting with Cpt. Love – that Alejandro expresses deep feelings of guilt to Diego. He saw unimaginable sorrow and all he can think of is getting revenge for his brother. But it is this guilt, this pain which will propel him to be the true Zorro.
22) Once Banderas get to be the “real” Zorro so to speak, once he gets to put on the mask and after having had the proper training, he has a lot of fun with it. This is one of the greatest swashbuckling heroes of all time and he is LOVING it. And we love watching him because of it. Nowhere is this better seen in the two-on-one sword fight.
Well, maybe the fight with Elena gives a better look at that.
23) The fight with Elena and Zorro is freaking awesome (if at times problematic).
This is comparable to their tango earlier in the film. It’s the passion between the two, their incredible chemistry matching each other. Mixed in with Elena’s growing ferocity and you have an amazing scene. There are just two things that bother: one is that Zorro kisses Elena without asking. I mean the chemistry is obviously incredible there, but I like it when people get asked first. Second is this:
(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)
This makes me a little uncomfortable, it feels creepy and like an invasion. It’s the one moment in the movie I think has maybe aged the worst.
24) The following horse chase/thief scene always felt a little bit extra to me. We don’t really need it I feel and it could have easily been cut without any issue to the rest of the story. I just…don’t need it.
25) Rafael is smart. He doesn’t underestimate any man who takes up the mantle of Zorro, unlike Cpt. Love. I love a villain who doesn’t underestimate the hero and vice versa.
26) Elena is smarter than Rafael gives her credit for, primarily because he gives her such little credit as a woman. When Diego comes to tell her that he’s her father, Rafael thinks he can just lie to her. But Elena has been putting together small things since her arrival in California: the familiarity she has with Diego, the familiar smell of flowers which only grow there, the woman in the market saying she knew her. Elena is able to figure it out all she needed was Diego to give her the last piece of the puzzle. I love that. And then it doesn’t take long for Elena to accept this truth as she saves Diego from Rafael’s jail.
27) In the climax of the film it is clear: Alejandro is Zorro and Diego is just a father trying to make things right. They’re both seeking revenge, but Alejandro’s revenge puts him on the path to saving the miners while Diego’s revenge (while aiding Alejandro) is more about himself. That’s not to say Diego has become a bad man, quite the contrary. But it is a clear distinction to make at the end of the film. There is no more question as to who Zorro is.
28) This climax is also not only well choreographed, but also is able to move seamlessly between Diego and Alejandro. It is a testament to the editing, direction, choreography again, and screenwriting that it doesn’t feel hacked together. It is just a great scene.
29) According to IMDb:
In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio’s original draft of the screenplay, Don Diego was not killed, and lived to tell the story of Zorro’s adventures to his granddaughter.
I almost feel like that would have been too safe. I mean killing Diego is like killing Bruce Wayne to anyone who is a fan of the Zorro stories. It carries a lot of weight and ends his story well. It’s not sad. He got his daughter back, if only for a while. And he got to help her (even if just a little) become the woman she was in her heart. The fierce one. The wild one. The brave one.
30) Also according to IMDb:
During the post-production phase, Steven Spielberg and Martin Campbell decided that Diego de la Vega’s death in the arms of his daughter was too depressing. The ending, where Alejandro and Eléna are happily married with their infant son, was added three months after filming had ended.
I think that is a smart choice. It not only provides a nice parallel to the start of the film, but also ends the adventure on a high note.
Alejandro [to Elena about Zorro]: “He has been many different men, but he has loved you as all of them.”
The Mask of Zorro is a fun adventure film in it’s most basic and exciting form. It was mentioned briefly above that Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Road to El Dorado, Shrek, Treasure Planet) wrote the script, and their signature sense of fun and (again) adventure infects every minute of the film. Antonio Banderas is an amazing Zorro and the cast which supports him – with particular shout outs to Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta Jones – is just as good. If you’re a fan of adventure films or any of the actors involved, I suggest you give The Mask of Zorro a watch.
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