Legend of Zorro (review)

“Dude, the poster is on fire! Somebody better put it out.”
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Legend of Zorro

This is the follow up to the slightly better film The Mask of Zorro. This movie, while enjoyable, falls under the goofy department too much for my taste. Plus, the PG rating does hurt the movie (The first one was PG-13.). Zorro now is married and has a little boy (Little Brat), while California bids for statehood. The plot is a little flimsy and not even worth repeating here.

The action scenes are what keep this movie from drowning in its own goofiness. The action scenes are filmed and edited pretty good, and only get better toward the end. The battle between the main villain and Zorro is worth noting.

James Horner returns for the sequel to compose the music. Like any other Horner score, it sounds like every score he’s written in the past 15 years. (Really, Horner, it’s time to write new music.). In this film, he decides that his old Mask of Zorro score was good enough and simply played the themes without adding anything new. I should also note that Horner also rips pages from his Clear and Present Danger score, because he was extra lazy. (Why does Horner still use that Japanese flute in every score? Is he in love with it? It has no business being in a Mexican film set in Old California, enough already.)

In the end, the movie is much more lighthearted than the early film, and doesn’t hold up well. It is still a fun movie, but nothing more.

Movie Grade: C

James Horner Score Grade: F+