The Mask of Zorro

Dir Martin Campbell PG 160mins.

WAS there ever a hero as camp as Zorro? Has there ever been a version of Zorro as camp as director Martin Campbell's vision?

Every time the masked Mexican flourishes his sword or flaps his cape, his movements are accompanied by the little flourish of a guitar sound. It is wonderful stuff.

In fact, the whole of this movie is wonderful. It's what Hollywood does best -- big budget, action flicks with the humour and talent to match. Mind you, its probably the large British contingent that makes this a cut above most other things out at the moment. Campbell is a Brit who cut his teeth on The Professionals; Sir Anthony Hopkins plays the elderly Zorro; and the gorgeous Catherine Zeta Jones is the fiesty love interest.

This is Zeta Jones' film. As baddy Don Rafael Montero's daughter Elena she has more to play with than the usual token love interest role. She fights, plots and rescues as we leap from one spectacular scene to the next. Was she ever as beautiful as she is here? This is her major movie debut and yet she commands the screen. She has the look of a Hollywood legend. Forget Kate, Minnie and certainly Liz -- here is a British movie Queen who can act as good as she looks and looks as good as she acts.

She has her work cut out starring opposite Antonio Banderas. He too has that rare talent of someone who looks very good and can act as well. He is every inch the hero, but it is his comic timing and sense of humour that lifts his interpretation of the young bandit training to be the new man behind Zorro's mask.

At one point, Hopkins asks him if he knows how to use the ferocious-looking sword that he is carrying.

"Sure, the pointy end goes in the man," he replies with a twinkle.

Hopkins, who normally clogs the pace of a film with his measured, intelligent, but so darn slow thesping, has been speeded up.

It is a venomous performance fuelled by the jealousy and bitterness of a man once a hero, who has had everything stripped from him by his nemesis Montero.

The Mask of Zorro is Batman and Robin with horses, but the script sparkles and the action illuminates -- lifting it above the rest. Campbell proved with Goldeneye that he can direct a successful, big budget adventure. Here we have further proof, but to it he has added tongue-in-cheek moments that will make you unashamed to cheer the hero out loud.

The Mask of Zorro is a Christmas treat after a particularly poor year at the cinema. See it and be thrilled.

Jeremy Austin

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.