Kurtzman and Orci's The Legend of Zorro (2005)

Leave it to fate to present me with one of the few movies written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci that I haven't seen after writing a post about them.

Usually I don't like to watch movies I haven't seen before on TV, but I'm guessing there weren't a lot of scenes cut out of The Legend of Zorror for TBS on Saturday. I did have to suffer through two hosts who annoyed the crap out of me. Why do networks find it necesarry to put people like this on as hosts of a movie? Even if the movie is sponsored by someone specific (in this case San Diego's Sea World), just show a bunch of extra commercials or videos of Shamoo launching people through the air. If they're not going to add anything to the movie (like Dave Holmes does), then skip it.

Anyway, rant aside, I remember liking the original 1998 Mask of Zorro quite a bit, especially the legacy aspect of the hero (I'm a sucker for that). The funny thing is that I don't even remember this movie coming out. Ah well. We catch up with Zorro who's been married to Catherine Zeta-Jones for 10 years and they have a kid, so he gave up being Zorro (or maybe just for a short time, I'm not completely clear on that as I missed the first 10-15 minutes). Anyway, he gets pushed to far and finally gets to Zorro some dudes and it's awesome.

The sword fights are cool, there's explosions and fireworks, Antonio Banderas is awesome as always, Catherine Zeta-Jones is super pretty and also kicks some ass, the kid is pretty good at kicking ass himself AND Michael Emerson (that's right, Ben from Lost), is in it. This is the only thing I know that I've seen him in after seeing him on Lost and he's good in this too. The movie's directed by Marin Campbell who also did Goldeneye and Casino Royale and is, as of now, slated to direct the Green Lantern movie I am really looking forward to. Like Rush Hour 3, it's a great popcorn movie and I will make a point of watching it again if I stumble across it on TV again. Once again, well done Kurtzman and Orci, your record remains untarnished (I should really give Mission Impossible III another watch, it's just so hard buying Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a villain!).