The legend of Zorro

Language : English / Spanish

Year of release : 2005

Run time : 2h10m

Genre : Adventure / Action / Western / Swashbuckler

Cast : Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rufus Sewell

The movie is the sequel to the 1998 movie, "The mask of Zorro".

The year is 1850, and Alejandro and Elena have been married for ten years and have a son together.

Zorro is helping the Californians cast a vote, as there are people who are trying to stop California from becoming part of the US.

Alejandro Murietta changed his last name,taking Don Diego's last name, and Elena's real name, de la Vega. After he stopped a plot to steal the ballots, and goes home, Elena is telling him she's had enough of him playing Zorro, being afraid for his safety, afraid he might be discovered and lose the life they built together. She also points out the fact that by always being away fighting bad guys, he is missing important time from their son's life. Elena tells Alejandro that if he walks out of the door he's not sleeping "there" that night, so he gets his suitcase.

2 men approach Elena the next day, the same men (we find out towards the end of the movie they are Pinkerton agents) who saw Zorro's face when one of the villains he was fighting took the mask off his face. And she sends him the divorce papers (I didn't know people could divorce back then).

3 months later, Alejandro drowns his sorrows in alcohol, while living at a hotel. Father Felipe, who knows he is Zorro, is asking him to attend French count Armand's party at his vineyard. He finally agrees, and sees Elena is now dating him.

Alejandro is making a fool of himself at the party, being jealous and drinking too much.

We see Elena is being spied on and blackmailed by the 2 men who approached her 3 months prior, leading to her divorcing Alejandro. They use her to get information on Armand.

We find out his son is very much like him, although Alejandro was afraid he might end up like the ridiculous noble men who do nothing all day and order servants around. Alejandro still forgets to take him from school, and is always late when they have to spend time together.

After the party, drunk, but joined by his horse, Alejandro witnesses an explosion like he's never seen before, close to Armand's place, and the next day confronts Elena, who was strolling with Armand. Armand seems to have fantastic hearing, as he heard him from pretty far away, and he also seems to have hawk eyes, as nothing escapes him. He does seem to be mesmerized by Elena.

Soon, the more we see of Armand, the more he starts looking like the villain, as he seems to be in the company of the villains Zorro fought at the beginning of the movie. Maybe there's more to him than the charming French count everyone sees and likes.

I enjoyed the movie, but not as much as the first one. It wasn't as funny, as I only laughed when Alejandro made a fool of himself because Elena was with another man (and I felt bad laughing at someone's pain!). I also hate these sequel movie tropes in which they separate the couple (see Bridget Jones) just to get them back together at the end, because they can't think of something else.

I hated the hair they gave Antonio Banderas. I don't understand why they had to straighten his hair, as he looked good in the first one with his real hair. They did the same thing to actor Rufus Sewell, who has curly hair, and had it straighten up. Whoever worked on this movie really hates curly hair on men!

I also didn't like the fact that certain villains would flip over with the carriage, among other things, like falling from high, escaping with not even a scratch on them, when they should have been dead!

I didn't like the ending, in which Zorro continued being Zorro, as it felt he / they learnt nothing from what they went through, SPOILERS as they almost lost everything, being discovered .

I did like the world they created, the places they filmed at, the interior design, and Elena's outfits, the dresses and jewelry. I also liked the fact Elena can take care of herself, and fight.

The acting was good.

The soundtrack had the same strings from the first one, with arrangements from the song written for the first movie and sang by Mark Anthony and Tina Arena "I want to spend my lifetime loving you".

The movie received negative reviews, with a 27% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a score of 47 out of 100 on Metacritic. Cinema Score audiences were much nicer, rating the movie an A-. It grossed 142.4 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 75 million dollars.

You can watch the full movie for free, if you follow this link :

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9gnnjo

Rating : Worth a watch !