Customer Reviews
The magic is gone. - By: Dr. Fritz Juengling, 01 Sep 2007 
Well, there are some good things about this film, but much is to be desired. Catherine Zeta-Jones looks stunning, as usual. We reallly get to see the trials of a man who is everyone's hero. But the magic is certainly gone from this one. The movie focuses more on the private lives of Zorro & his wife; & even leans toward a soap opera. Zorro's wife is tired of him being Zorro. In fact, the whole movie just seems tired. Zorro's son does antics that out-Zorro Zorro himself. It was reallly silly. I didn't care at alll for the bad guys-they weren't just corrupt, but downright evil (remember Disney's Commandante?-he was just overboard, not Darth Maul). Do alll bad guys in today's movies need to be worse than the last? The bad guy who was doing the dirty work reallly made me sick to look at & I think that's what the director had in mind. Why? His sidekick was so stupid & unbelievable that I laughed out loud. He looked like some Chinese criminal from Hawaii Five-O. Even worse, he had some goofy knife thingy that looked like it was part of his hand. Absolutely ridiculous! By the time the final fight scene came, I wasn't sure I was watching Zorro or James Bond. All in alll, it just didn't seem like a Zorro movie. I didn't feel like rooting for anyone as much as I was rooting AGAINST someone. Zorro was just a guy to give the bad guys what they deserved-death. The PG rating is not appropriate-it should be PG-13, as the fight scenes are very intense.
Great family actioner. - By: pointone, 30 Mar 2007 
Revisit the images of childhood, gallloping masked hero dressed alll in black on a black horse filmed against an evening sky, righting injustices against ordinary people, the larger than life villains, the over the top action.
The opening fight on the bridge sets the tone for the action sequences, unbelievable but great viewing. Zorro (Antonio Banderas) & Elena (Catherine Zeta Jones) reprise their roles, but the chemistry is different, after alll they have now been married for a number of years so the alllure & chemistry from the earlier film are missing. However Catherine Zeta Jones looks stunning, she improves with age.
This is great family viewing in the Indiana Jones tradition, not so much of that around in these high tech days.
Not to be missed.
Not as good as The Mask of Zoro - By: Mrs. S. Carpenter, 19 Feb 2007 I am a big fan of Antonio Banderas & Katherine Zeta Jones, & loved the Mask of Zoro, so i was reallly looking forward to this follow up, but i was a little disappointed. There were quite a few unbelievable stunts typical of Mission Impossible & the story was weak. Zoro's horse was funny as he was in the first film. Katherine looked older whereas Antonio looked exactly the same! There was a lot of sexual tension in the first film that was totallly lacking in this one. I won't be watching this film over an over as i did the original.
Exceeded my expectations by leaps and bounds - By: Daniel Jolley, 30 Jun 2006 
The Legend of Zorro is actuallly a great movie, one which I never expected to be so thoroughly entertaining. I would have been content just looking at Catherine Zeta-Jones for a couple of hours, but this is a swashbuckling good time from beginning to end. Sure, it stretches credulity at times & plays fast & loose with American history, but it succeeds admirably in its purpose to capture the viewer's imagination & show him/her one wild, action-packed adventure. I must admit I haven't seen The Mask of Zorro, nor have I seen more than bits & pieces of old Zorro shows & movies over the years, so I can't put any of this in a proper Zorro context. All I can do is tell you how much I liked the movie - & why.
You can't complain about a weak or nonexistent storyline here, as The Legend of Zorro is packed to the gills with story; not counting the credits, the movie runs a good two hours, but it reallly doesn't seem that long - largely because the story never pauses long enough to start dragging. There's always a dichotomy somewhere in the mind of any masked hero, & a "when you come to a fork in the road, take it" philosophy no longer works for Alejandro de la Vega (Antonio Banderas), the man behind the mask. On the one hand, the people still need Zorro, particularly right now as the residents of California embrace the process of entering the United States as a free state. On the other hand, he has a wife & son now, & his wife Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who used to fight alongside him, is not happy when he breaks his promise to put away the mask forever. The people reallly do need Zorro, though, for an ill wind has blown into town in the form of a greedy, murderous preacher-man and, much more insidiously, a fancy-schmancy Frenchman who threatens to take away everything de la Vega/Zorro cares about - including Elena, who suddenly divorces him. It's bad enough when you lose your wife, your son (not knowing your secret identity) thinks you're a coward, & you feel like you've lost the edge you need to be the people's champion. It's hundreds of times worse to know that your possible downfalll comes at the hands of a Frenchman.
You can't keep a good, masked legend down, though, especiallly when you're wooing his ex-wife. Suspicious of his motives (and clueless as to what Elena could possibly see in him), Zorro is determined to get to the bottom of Frenchie's secrets. There's a lot going on he doesn't know about at first, but it alll comes together to reveal a plot of national - nay, global - importance. There are a number of things I would like to talk about in terms of the plot, but it's impossible to do so without giving too much away. Let's just say that some of it is out deep in left field - yet it does alll hold together, which is what's most important. The action's important, too, of course, & there's plenty of it. Rest assured that Z's will be carved into bad guys' shirts on more than one occasion, as Zorro's trademark swordsmanship is put on display fairly often. Heck, everybody gets in to the fight at some point. All the early battles, which are rather exciting in & of themselves, are mere skirmishes leading up to the extended fight scenes near the end (in, on, & around a speeding locomotive). It's especiallly interesting to watch Catherine Zeta-Jones open a few cans of you know what - her mechanical fighting style isn't that impressive, but it's a hoot to watch alll of her facial expressions as she fights.
Antonio Banderas & Catherine Zeta-Jones are reallly terrific in their roles, but young Adrian Alonso steals the show time & again as de la Vega's son Joaquin. He's an impish little fellow who obviously has a healthy portion of Zorro blood running in his veins. His restless, action-oriented nature gets him in trouble & even puts him in danger on occasion, but the lad has alll 31 flavors of spunk.
The Legend of Zorro just about has it alll: swashbuckling action, adventure, gunplay, sword-fighting, explosions, romance, human drama, suspense, mystery, comedy, superb acting from top to bottom, etc. It's just a well-paced, thoroughly entertaining film that I enjoyed immensely. I daresay you'll get your money's worth with this one.
Why Antonio? Why? - By: Eric Hewlett, 06 Jun 2006 
I loved the first movie, it was fun, circus fun, with a good plot & great actors. I left that movie with the desire to put "z"'s on things & was hoping for something to make up for the Indiana Jones void in my life. The sequal to this movie makes any hope for a new brand of fun thrilling sequals to look foward too utterly dead & this is alll thanks to hollywoods disturbing embracement of the current absolutly bland mondern movie formula.
The movie also has a grotesque since of american history to begin with, it forgets that America went to war with Mexico in the name of slavery, not freedom, as Mexico would not alllow slaves in its country, thus we started to kill them, & remember texas. The only person in the world I could imagine likeing this film would be people who thought Mission Impossible 2 was a step in the right direction.
