The Mask of Zorro opens with a public execution and ends with a marriage, and in between it does something the swashbuckler genre had not managed in years: it hands the mask to a new man and lets the old one watch. Martin Campbell directed the 1998 film from a screenplay by John Eskow, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio and Randall Jahnson. It runs 138 minutes. It is an action adventure picture, and it is one of the few of its kind that treats a handoff of power as the whole point rather than the setup for a sequel.
Trailer, via Amblin Entertainment.
Don Diego de la Vega Loses Everything in 1821
The film’s first act is a tragedy disguised as an adventure. In 1821, Zorro defends the commoners of Alta California from Spanish rule. Don Rafael Montero, the corrupt governor, sets a trap at the execution of three peasants. Zorro stops it. Two young brothers, Alejandro and Joaquín Murrieta, help defeat Montero’s soldiers, and Zorro thanks them by giving Joaquín a medallion.
Montero works out that the Spanish-born nobleman Don Diego de la Vega is Zorro and comes for him at his home. A swordfight breaks out, then a fire. De la Vega’s wife, Esperanza — the woman Montero wants for himself — is murdered in the process. Montero takes de la Vega’s infant daughter, Elena, and raises her as his own, then has de la Vega imprisoned and sails for Spain.
That is a lot of loss to load onto a hero in twenty minutes, and the film never flinches from it. Anthony Hopkins plays de la Vega with a stillness that makes the later revenge feel earned rather than merely scheduled.
Alejandro Murrieta Is a Bandit Before He Is a Hero
Twenty years pass. It is 1841. Alejandro and Joaquín are bandits and conmen trying to steal a strongbox. They fail. Captain Harrison Love, who works for Montero’s company, catches them. Alejandro escapes. Joaquín, wounded, kills himself.
Montero returns to California with the now-adult Elena, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Elena believes her mother died in childbirth, a lie Montero has kept for two decades. De la Vega escapes captivity, encounters a drunk Alejandro, and recognizes the medallion he once gave Joaquín. The two men strike a bargain: Alejandro becomes his protégé so each can take revenge on his own enemy, Montero and Love.
Antonio Banderas plays Alejandro, a role he was paid $5 million for. The character was conceived as the fictional brother of the real-life Joaquin Murrieta.
The Training Under the Ruins Is the Film’s Best Stretch
Alejandro agrees to intense training in Zorro’s secret lair beneath the ruins of the de la Vega family estate. The goal is to be named de la Vega’s successor. The training sequences are where The Mask of Zorro slows down and gets better, because they are about discipline rather than spectacle.
The film does not keep Alejandro obedient for long. Mid-training, he steals a stallion resembling Zorro’s steed Tornado from the local garrison, masks himself as Zorro, and barely escapes. De la Vega scolds him, insisting Zorro was a servant of the people and not a showman. That argument is the spine of the movie.
Bob Anderson Trained Three Stars for Ten Hours a Day
The sword work is not incidental. Banderas practiced with Spain’s Olympic fencing team for four months before studying further with Hopkins and Zeta-Jones. All three trained under Bob Anderson during pre-production in Mexico, ten hours a day for two months on fight scenes alone.
Campbell’s account of Anderson is blunt and affectionate. “We used to call him Grumpy Bob on the set, he was such a perfectionist,” the director said. “He was incredibly inventive, and also refused to treat any of the actors as stars. They would complain about the intensity of the training, but having worked with him there’s nobody I’d rather use.”
Anderson, during interviews for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, rated Banderas the best natural talent he had worked with. That is not marketing. It shows in the film.
A Production That Survived Its Own Casting Changes
The Mask of Zorro took a long road to the screen. Executive producer Steven Spielberg had initially developed it for TriStar Pictures with directors Mikael Salomon and Robert Rodriguez before Campbell signed on in 1996. Salomon cast Sean Connery as de la Vega. Rodriguez brought Banderas in for the lead.
Connery dropped out and Hopkins replaced him. Hopkins was cast in December 1996, one month before filming began, and took the part because he wanted to be in an action film. Benicio Del Toro, Andy García, Marc Anthony, Joaquim de Almeida and Chayanne were considered before Banderas won the lead.
Filming began in January 1997 at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City.
Release and Awards
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1996 | Martin Campbell signs on to direct |
| December 1996 | Anthony Hopkins cast as Don Diego de la Vega |
| January 1997 | Filming begins at Estudios Churubusco, Mexico City |
| July 17, 1998 | Released in the United States by TriStar Pictures |
| 71st Academy Awards | Two nominations |
| 56th Golden Globe Awards | Two nominations |
The film grossed $250.3 million against a budget reported at $65–95 million. It was released in the United States by TriStar Pictures on July 17, 1998. It drew two nominations at the 71st Academy Awards and two at the 56th Golden Globe Awards. A sequel followed.
What Actually Holds Up
The Mask of Zorro works because it refuses to let the old hero and the new one be the same story. Hopkins plays a man who lost his wife and spent twenty years in prison while Montero raised his daughter as his own, and he plays it without begging for sympathy. Banderas plays a man who has lost a brother and has no idea what he is signing up for.
The film’s tagline — “No one has seen his face… but everyone… knows this mark.” — is a promise about anonymity, but the movie is really about inheritance. The mask passes from one generation to the next, and the daughter Montero stole becomes the woman who ties the two men together.
The weakest stretch is the middle, where the revenge plotting gets crowded and Montero’s scheme against California grows vague. The strongest is everything Bob Anderson touched. Campbell got a genuine action star out of Banderas and a genuine actor out of Hopkins, and the film is smart enough to need both.
Score
8.6 of 10. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 86%. The Mask of Zorro is a swashbuckler with a real melancholy underneath it, and the handoff at its center is the reason it still plays.
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