The story of the Californian hero Zorro has much in common with the legend of Robin Hood. Both Diego de la Vega and Robert of Locksley are aristocrats, but both choose to side with the common people in their fight against injustice and oppression by foreign overlords, be they the Norman conquerors of England or the Spanish colonial rulers of California. Both men, at least in the cinematic versions of the legend, are expert swordsmen. Traditionally, of course, Robin Hood was more associated with the longbow than the sword, but the producers of adventure movies have always known that sword-fights make for exciting cinema. Hence the famous duel between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (or, for that matter, all those light-sabres in "Star Wars"). Similarly, Zorro still clings to his trusty blade, even though the stories are set at a time in the nineteenth century when serious differences were settled by the gun and swords were largely confined to ceremonial uses and ritualistic duelling.
This particular version of the story begins in 1821 when Mexico (which at this date still included California) is about to gain its independence from Spain. Zorro rescues three men from being executed by the evil Spanish governor, Don Rafael Montero, but is recognised as being Diego de la Vega, a man against whom Montero has long held a grudge. Zorro is arrested at his home and in the struggle his wife Esperanza is killed. Montero kidnaps his daughter Elena and raises her as his own.
The action then leaps forward twenty years to 1841, when Zorro manages to escape after a long imprisonment. Montero has now returned to California as the leader of a conspiracy to escape from Mexican rule and to form an independent republic with himself as dictator. He has discovered a rich source of gold which he is secretly mining. Although this gold is the property of the Mexican government, they are unaware of its existence, and Montero intends to use it to buy California's independence from a government desperate for funds to finance its war against the Americans. In order to thwart this plot and to avenge the death of his wife, Zorro finds a young man, Alejandro, who has a grudge against Montero whose henchman Captain Love was responsible for the death of his brother, and trains him in the art of sword-fighting to take his place as the new Zorro.
The film is in many ways similar to the recent sequel, "The Legend of Zorro". Both are swashbuckling adventure stories with a likable hero in Antonio Banderas's Alejandro and a ravishingly beautiful heroine in Catherine Zeta Jones's Elena. Elena is not just the hero's love interest (inevitably, she and Alejandro end up falling for each other), but also a heroine in her own right, a fearless and resourceful lady who is as skilled with a sword as he is. Catherine has never looked lovelier than she does here. The earlier film is, however, the better one. It has a second hero in Anthony Hopkins's de la Vega, who brings to the role a dignity and gravitas lacking in the sequel, in which he does not appear. It is not as blithely unconcerned with historical accuracy as the second film, although there are still one or two errors.(The leader of the Mexican nationalist rebel armies in 1821 was not Santa Anna but Iturbide; Mexico was not at war with the USA in 1841 as the Mexican-American War did not break out until 1846).
More importantly, there is a significant difference in the political tone of the two films. The sequel is dominated by a rather paranoid post-9/11 patriotism, with Zorro becoming a heroic defender of America against a dastardly foreign conspiracy to blow up the nation's capital. This tone is fortunately absent from the original film. Rather, its ethos is what Roger Ebert describes as a "sense of honour". Zorro is the representative of truth and decency, the righter of wrongs, the champion of the weak against the strong. (The climax comes when Zorro has to prevent Montero and his henchmen from not only destroying the mine but also blowing up all the miners with it, in order to conceal the evidence of their illegal gold-mining). This is not the film to go to if you are looking for deep analysis of moral issues or great psychological depth. As a modern version of those old Errol Flynn swashbuckling adventures, however, it is excellent. 7/10
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