Banderas, when he goes to see the gold mine, in the black coat,
white pants, and gold vest. Oh my. The first shot of him as
Zorro. Wow.
He was funny, brave, hunky, gorgeous, glorious, and....well.
Hopkins was marvellous throughout; a refreshing change from the
phone-in job he did as Quincy Adams in Amistad. Hell, I thought
he looked hot when he was pretending to be the servant and had
his hair braided. He didn't even look all that bad when they made
him up to look young.
What's her face was, indeed, a babe. What was with the fuzzy
camera work, though? Great dance, phenomenal duel, and she was
believably brave. Major points scored.
Nice touch making one of the bad guys a blue-eyed blond. The
villains were actually serviceable. Since they weren't given
memorability, their job was to be bad, be believable, and not
overract. Wilson and Letscher come through nicely. They die well,
not too cravenly.
And, gloriously, no smartass sidekick to be found.
The script was written by the same guys who wrote Godzilla, but
they did a hell of a lot better job. It would have been so easy,
given the time, the accents, and the storyline, to lose the light
touch. But they and the performers never did. (well, a touch at
the end, maybe). They all caught the mood and were never too
silly, too grandiose, or too campy.
The stunts were marvellously choreographed--at least, I commented
on it and I'm usually immune to stunts. The fencing was nice--not
anywhere near as good as The Princess Bride, but still very solid
and a huge step above the Musketeer movies of recent years.
