Much training ensues and eventually Alejandro’s ready to become the new Zorro. He realizes that a young Alejandro helped him elude pursuers years earlier, and he decides to take on the adult version as a protégé. He vows revenge but is in no shape to enact his plans.Įnter Diego, recently escaped from his long imprisonment. A vicious military captain named Harrison Love (Matthew Letscher) kills Joaquin and harms Jack, but Alejandro escapes. Twenty years later, we meet a ragged criminal named Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas), his brother Joaquin (Victor Rivers), and a partner named Three-Fingered Jack (L.Q. Montero’s men accidentally kill Diego’s wife, and they then imprison him and leave the fate of his infant daughter Elena uncertain. Unfortunately, his archenemy Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson) discovers his real identity of Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins). We see Zorro, as masked hero who champions the people. The flick mainly takes place in 19th century Mexico, but it actually begins with a flashback sequence of sorts.
Not exactly Titanic level, but it seemed pretty solid for a movie with a $65 million budget.Īs for the film itself, I thought it provided a reasonably entertaining experience that surpassed my expectations. While 1998’s The Mask of Zorro didn’t knock off any box office socks, it did reasonably well with a US gross of $93 million and it nabbed a tidy $232 million worldwide. I was wrong, at least to a certain extent. I believed that such a swashbuckling persona wouldn’t appeal to modern audiences, and Zorro was best left to parodies like 1981’s Zorro, the Gay Blade. Zorro was one of those heroes who felt stuck in a past era so strongly that I didn’t think an updated take on the character would work. A new edition of Zorro? That one caught me by surprise. A version of The Mummy made for contemporary tastes? Seemed to work out well.
Hollywood just loves to update properties from the past, and some of these make more sense than others. Picture/Sound/Extras: A-/A- (Dolby Digital), A (DTS)/B
$24.95 street date 9/25/01.Īudio Commentary With Director Martin Campbell Two Deleted Scenes “Unmasking Zorro” Documentary “I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You” Music Video Theatrical Trailers TV Spots Talent Files Production Notes. Widescreen 2.35:1/16x9, Fullscreen 1.33:1 audio English Dolby Digital 5.1 & DTS 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1 subtitles English, French, Spanish closed-captioned single sided - dual layered 28 chapters rated PG-13 137 min. Opening Weekend: $22.525 million (2515 screens). Nominated for Best Sound Effects Editing Best Sound.īudget: $65 million. But can even their combined skills be enough to achieve de la Vega's ultimate goal: revenge against the man who killed his wife, kidnapped his daughter and held him prisoner for twenty years?Īntonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stuart Wilson, Matt Letscher When a power-crazed despot schemes to buy California from Mexico, it takes two Zorros - the legendary Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins) and his chosen successor Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas), a dashing bandit-turned-hero - to defeat the tyrant's unscrupulous plans. "Damn" is heard.The Mask of Zorro: Special Edition (1998) Wine and tequila drinking at social functions. There is cigarette smoking and some drinking: One of the lead characters is shown drunk in a saloon mourning his brother's death. Brief male nudity, nonsexual: A group of men fighting Zorro end up tied up with their pants down, buttocks exposed. During a sword fight, a woman's top is sliced off her hair strategically covers her breasts. Zorro hits a large man in the head repeatedly with two cannonballs until he spits out his teeth and dies. One of the bad guys keeps a decapitated head in a glass container as well as a severed hand in a glass bowl. Peasants are enslaved in a gold mine - they are shown whipped, beaten, and kept in cages. There is also fighting with guns, rifles, knives, and dynamite. Some of the sword violence is comedic in the form of pratfalls and debonair one-liners. Unsurprisingly, there is quite a bit of sword fighting and swashbuckling. Parents need to know that The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 action movie in which Anthony Hopkins plays the aging legendary swashbuckling hero.