Mask Of Zorro

The legend of Zorro has been with us for almost a century and with this latest offering it seems that the legend never dies. As Antonio says "Zorro - The Legend has returned". I never saw this movie in the theatres and only got hold of the region 1 version by recommendation of all the reviews. Thankfully, the reviews were correct, this is a great action/advernture movie.

Don Rafaelo Montero (Stuart Wilson) is about to execute 3 random peasants pulled out of the crowd in the hope of luring Zorro, Don Diego De La Vega (Anthony Hopkins), out of hiding to trap and kill him. But as all hero movies go, Zorro frees the captives with the help of the two young Murrieta brothers, with whom he leaves a silver amulet. When he catches up with Don Rafaelo he leaves the mark of Zorro on his neck, tells him to leave Mexico and is on his way again.

Rafaelo, with a hint of who Zorro is, goes to the home of De La Vega, kills his wife, takes his daughter as his own, burns down his house and finally throws Zorro into prison before fleeing Mexico himself.

Years later, the Murrieta brothers, all grown up, are wanted criminals and cross paths with Captain Harrison Love; a ruthless law-man with hate in his eyes who ends up killing one of the brothers leaving Alejandro (Antonio Banderas) to flee for safety. Alejandro makes it back into town where he meets up with a now wilted De La Vega who begins to train him in the ways of the fox. In the meantime, Don Rafaelo returns, with his daughter Elena (Catherine Zeta Jones) all grown up, and ready to reclaim the land he diseminated amongst all the other Dons.

Now that the training is complete, Alejandro wants revenge against Captain Love and De La vega wants to retrieve his daughter back from Don Rafaelo. Needless to say the action is plentiful, the romance is steamy and the climax is thoroughly enjoyable. Onto the disc itself...

This is a great transfer from Columbia only marred by a slight lack of shadow detail and black levels. I'm not sure if it is my setup but other discs look fine so I' comparing against them.

The detail in the image is abundant. PAL dvd just gives it that extra sharpness and it is noticeable in the opening crowd scenes where almost every face is clearly visible. Color rendition is great too with varying degrees of brown and tan, clothing and landscape, contrasted against colorful costumes and lush green pastures.

The bit rate is consistently mid-high so there's no real appearance of mpeg artifacts and very very marginal aliasing if at all.

Right from the start we are charged with a full on soundtrack as Zorro steps onto the screen and carves a Z into the air which swoops past the viewer and into the surrounds. A great intro and prelude to what we can expect for the rest of the movie.

This is a very dynamic soundtrack. Horse galloping produces hints of bass, sword fighting gives that metal flavor and the musical score is rendered beautifully throughout the movie.

I must congratulate the sound designers as they done a wonderful job creating a great aural partner to the visual appeal of this movie.

One thing I did notice was that the musical score sounded a lot like the Titanic score in many scenes. It seemed weird as I thought I was hearing things. Hmm, all is revealed in the extras section below.

Ahh, a swag of extras to make this disc a decent collectors edition. Let's look at them one by one:

• Animated Menus
  Mmmm, very cool menus. I almost thought the movies was about to begin but then it evolved into the menu screen. Cool stuff.
• Directors Commentary
  Martin Campbell gives us a directors perspective of the entire film. His insight into his decisions and direction are interesting and he reveals some interesting tid-bits throughout.
• Making of Documentary
  This is a 45 minute documentary encompassing cast and crew interviews, movie clips and your basic behind the scenes footage. Also included within are 2 deleted scenes. One featuring Elena (Zeta Jones) racing Captain Love (Letscher) slicing watermelons along the way and the other is the alternate ending that failed with initial test audiences.
• Deleted Scene - The Wallet
  This is a scene showing Antonio saving a lady from some runaway horses and in doing so he pick pockets both her and her husband of some gold an a wallet.
• US Theatrical Trailer
  Presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35 non anamorphic, this is a full on surround experience using narration to introduce the characters.
• Music Video
  Our own Tina Arena and MArk Anthony sing "I want to spend my lifetime loving You" with clips from the movie throughout.
• Publicity Photos
  A small collection of promotional photographs of the 3 main characters.
• FilmographiesOne page filmographies of the main characters and director Martin Campbell.

All in all, a great collection of extras.

As a movie, it's great fun. As a dvd, it's a great package. I can heartily recommend this disc to anyone who wants both an entertaining story, great action scenes, demo material sound and enough extras to keep you happy for a long while.