The Legend Of Zorro

Some seven years passed between the production of the original movie and this sequel, so I guess it's appropriate that the three years that I left between watching them also felt like seven.

Hollywood seems to tie a noose with which to hang itself when it comes to sequels. Almost every 'original' movie now features a romantic sub-plot that gets resolved happily at the end, inevitably making life difficult for the next one. Literally - the writers actually do make the two lovebirds' life difficult in the next one, so that they break up again, so that they can get back together again at the end again.

I mean who wants to return to these characters only to watch them making each other unhappy?

Yet, Superman™ Returns, Spider-Man 2, Shrek 2…

(hmm, that Puss In Boots cat sounds familiar...)

It's even worse when there's a kid to clog-up the story as well. So it is with The Legend Of Zorro, a sequel which doesn't even have the courtesy to follow The Mask Of Zorro in the alphabet.

However this kid (see - I'm already reviewing the kid's scenes instead of that Zorro fellow's) does have his moments. Who among us can manage to not cheer at the sequence when the young Joaquin acrobatically gets the better of his teacher at school?

Also a bright point throughout this is Zorro's best buddy Father Filipe - a hip man of the cloth if ever there was one.

Father Filipe: "Don't bother coming to confession because I'll never forgive you."
Zorro: "You'd blackmail my soul, eh?"
Father Filipe: "Hell yes."

You know what? I think I enjoyed this. I got confused at important points in the plot, such as why he changes his mind about blowing up the train that his wife and kid are not on, but once I'd worked out how roughly the film had been been put together, I realised that I was just taking it too seriously.

So what if there's dirt / water / flare on the camera lens at the start. Who can fathom how Joaquin, on horseback, overtakes the train that he is chasing by taking a longer route uphill. Why bother pondering why it takes the crowd of people such an agonisingly long time to just step off of the 2-3 metre wide railway track at the end.

It's called 'The Legend of Zorro'. Legends are so often exaggerated.

And I guess that sequels are, intrinsically, exaggerations too.

Available here.