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High spirited panche holds together creaky 'Zorro' sequel

Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones return as sparring spouses Alejandro and Elena de la Vega, battling villains and each other in Old California in The Legend Of Zorro. This sequel to the revisionist 1998 romp The Mask Of Zorro was delayed when director Martin Campbell and his posse of writers couldn't figure out how to inject sexual tension into a story in which the domesticated de la Vegas are long-married parents of a spunky little son.

Their solution? A manufactured conflict in which Elena demands that Aleajandro hang up his mask and take more interest in their son, Joaquin (Adrian Alonso)—who of course, hero-worships the mysterious Zorro, as opposed to the boring old dad he hardly knows. Then mix in a snake-in-the-grass Frenchman, Armand (Rufus Sewell, whose accent is about as French as Banderas'), proprietor of California's first vineyard, a sinister old flame who apparently sweeps Elena off her feet.

Let's face it, The Legend Of Zorro is huge pile of hokum from first to last, from its impossibly acrobatic heroics to its snarling thugs and hissing villains; from its cornball slapstick jokes to its convoluted plot; from its windy 2-hour-plus length to its Hammer horror movie finale about an ancient, mystical brotherhood of evildoers out to take over the world.

I loved just about every minute of it, and here's why.

As ridiculous as it often is, it's good-hearted, high-spirited hokum in the grand manner of a Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler or the Saturday matinee adventure serials of yore. So what if Zorro routinely fights off entire gangs of villains with a sword, a whip, and fancy footwork? So what if it never occurs to any of his rifle-toting enemies to just shoot him? So what if a single, highly selective drop of nitroglycerine blows up one bad guy and nobody else in the room? You want reality? Watch Cops.

Banderas, who started out in dark, edgy Pedro Almodovar comedies, seems to be having a hell of a good time, whether riding his scene-stealing horse Toronado onto the top of a speeding train, or swooping out of the rafters to rescue a baby from a burning barn. The stunts are as thrilling as they are ludicrous, and Banderas has so much infectious fun clowning around in between (and during) his dashing rescues, it's hard not to get into the spirit of the thing.

La Zeta's fiery Elena gets to have just as much fun (and screen time) as the boys, playing for equally high stakes, embroiled in a dangerous spying mission to protect Zorro's identity. To paraphrase the joke about Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, this swordfighting, high-kicking Elena can do everything Zorro can do, but she does it in a corset and hoop skirts.

Silly? You bet. Overlong and full of protracted fights and noisy nitro explosions, it's an often creaky device that runs on charm and panache alone. Hey, it worked for me.

(***) (PG) 129 minutes.

Review published in Good Times, November 3, 2005