Watch The Mask of Zorro For Free

The first must-see film of the year.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Movie Review: "The Mask of Zorro" (1998)Here is Hollywood at his best. Great story, great actors interacting with charms and wits from Sir Anthony Hopkins in mentor state for perfect-matching Antonio Banderas as about to become the masked avenger, finding his love interest embodied alongside with match-making screen-appearance by Catherine Zeta-Jones, when executive producing Steven Spielberg gives director Martin Campbell, known for resurrecting James Bond with the great "007: GoldenEye" (1995) starring Pierce Brosnan, opportunities to shine as filmmaker in western-action-battles with sword, guns and dynamite that after nearly 130 minutes of a non-stop entertaining ride there no doubts remaining that this has been a Hollywood picture well made, open to be rediscovered on video-on-demand for a motion picture striking evening.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

From the late 1940s through the 1950s, town theaters across mid-America at least, had Saturday matinée shows for kids. We had a second theater in my hometown that always showed Westerns – usually double features. Before TV became widespread, that's how kids saw many of the older Westerns and other films. And, that's where I saw my earliest Zorro movies. By the time the Zorro TV series was on the air, 1957-59, I was in high school, but I still watched it once in a while with my younger brothers. We were all wrapped up in Zorro, The Cisco Kid, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy. The modern recreations of those old Westerns have much more glamour and glitz along with the color. I wonder if kids today see the stories and heroes quite the same way as kids did of a couple generations ago. Still, those of us who grew up with the originals can enjoy the modern takes and different stars in the roles. This 1998 reprisal of the "Robin Hood" of Old California, has some different twists. But, it is a good action follow-up to the 1940 film, "The Mark of Zorro." Although a couple of silent films, and one other talking picture had been made before, the 1940 film entrenched the masked caballero as a Western hero on film. Tyrone Power starred as Don Diego de la Vaga. Zorro had been highly popular in serialized articles and then books by Johnston McCulley since 1919. Now he was assured of longevity for future generations of kids, young and old. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are very good in their lead roles. Anthony Hopkins is very good in his role, which is a twist on the original stories. With its swashbuckling action, "The Mask of Zorro" and is a good modern tale of the fox of early California days.

The Mask of Zorro is quite good fun. In this case good fun is enough. The film promises excitement and entertainment and it delivers on its promise. It even gives you two Zorros for the price of one. Anthony Hopkins plays Don Diego de la Vega, Zorro number one. Unfortunately for de la Vega when we meet him his time as a swashbuckling hero is about to be cut short in rather tragic fashion. He loses everything that is dear to him and is tossed into a dungeon. Twenty years later he escapes and plots his revenge. Only by this point he's a little too old for the Zorro stuff. He needs a protégé. Enter Alejandro Murrieta, played by Antonio Banderas. Alejandro, seeking revenge of his own, is raw and uncultured, nowhere near as suave as the original Zorro. And being suave is part of what makes Zorro Zorro. de la Vega will have to teach the new Zorro so much more than how to use a sword.Conveniently the man who wronged Alejandro, Captain Love, is now the right-hand man of Don Montero, the man who wronged de la Vega. They will take their vengeance together. Of course it's not quite that simple, there are complications. As you would expect in a movie of this sort one of those complications is a stunningly beautiful woman. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Elena, the daughter Montero stole from de la Vega when she was an infant all those years ago. Elena and Alejandro fall for each other because of course they do. Meanwhile there are still those bad guys who need to be dispatched and a plot to steal California which needs to be foiled. This of course will involve sword fights. Many, many sword fights. Hey, it's a Zorro movie, what were you expecting? The movie greatly benefits from the performances of its three leads. Hopkins is reliably brilliant and clearly enjoying himself in a role which allows him to have some real fun for once. Banderas really grows into the role of Zorro as the movie progresses. He may not be very suave in the beginning but by the end he's quite the charmer. And Zeta-Jones brings a great spark to the proceedings. Elena's not your stereotypical damsel in distress, she gives as good as she gets. Zeta-Jones fits the role perfectly, full of confidence and charisma. Being drop-dead gorgeous doesn't hurt either. Banderas and Zeta-Jones have great chemistry but so too, in a very different way, do Banderas and Hopkins. Everyone plays off one another ever so well. While certainly not as memorable as the three stars the villains play their parts well too. A movie like this needs strong antagonists and here we are not disappointed, these are some truly hissable villains. Captain Love is so over-the-top in his evilness it's a little hard to believe. But the character is based on a real-life figure so give the movie the benefit of the doubt I suppose. Anyhow if you hate the bad guys, and you will, that can only help the movie in the end as you become more emotionally invested. This movie has a lot going for it. Action, drama, romance. A great story, great actors, great visuals, great music. Heroes to cheer, villains to despise. It's certainly not the most serious-minded of films but it's serious enough when it needs to be. Really good swashbuckling fun, that's what this movie is. What more could you want from Zorro?

Excellent adventure film that it takes the character created for a serial early twentieth century by Johnston McCulley, which was already interpreted correctly on the screen by Douglas Fairbanks in the silent version of Fred Niblo 1920, and its sound remake, by Tyrone Power, in the version directed by Rouben Mamoullian in 1940. The character, who also knew a fleeting glory in the films of European series B in the mid-60s, is a cross between the tradition of generous bandit, in the style of the legends of "Robin Hood," and the anonymous liberator and double personality, represented by "the Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness d'Orczy. The clever script for this film, takes the character to interpret Fairbanks and Power, played this time with his usual solvency by Anthony Hopkins, in his latest adventure, and making a transcript of the plot of "The Count of Monte Cristo", he's imprisoned for nearly 20 years, but he takes his revenge, after a miraculous liberation. That's possible be taking the personality of the masked sword-man by a new character, Alejandro Murrieta, played by Antonio Banderas, in his most memorable role to date of his Hollywood films, resulting in a whole process of initiation, which is one of the strengths in the plot rests. If the tandem of Hopkins-Banderas is one of those strengths, the second is the tandem of Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones, whose chemistry on screen becomes all the memorable scenes in which they appear together, especially the duel sword in the stables. Martin Campbell up with this attractive material an excellent adventure film of classic resonances to achieve the precise rhythm between fast action scenes and hilarious comedy without the spoof, which has so burdened adventure films of recent years.