The Mask of Zorro (1998)
The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the character of the masked vigilante Zorro created by Johnston McCulley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stuart Wilson. The film features the original Zorro, Don Diego de la Vega (Hopkins), escaping from prison to find his long-lost daughter (Zeta-Jones) and avenge the death of his wife at the hands of the corrupt governor Rafael Montero (Wilson). He is aided by his successor (Banderas), who is pursuing his own vendetta against the governor’s right-hand man while falling in love with de la Vega’s daughter. Executive producer Steven Spielberg had initially developed the film for TriStar Pictures with directors Mikael Salomon and Robert Rodriguez, before Campbell signed on in 1996.
Salomon cast Sean Connery as Don Diego de la Vega, while Rodriguez brought Banderas in the lead role. Connery dropped out and was replaced with Hopkins, and The Mask of Zorro began filming in January 1997 at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City, Mexico.
The film was released in the United States on July 17, 1998 to critical and commercial success, grossing $250 million on a $95 million budget. The Legend of Zorro, a sequel also starring Banderas and Zeta-Jones and directed by Campbell, was released in 2005, but did not fare as well as its predecessor.
Plot.
In 1821, Don Diego de la Vega, a Spanish-born California nobleman, fights against the Spanish in the Mexican War of Independence as Zorro, a mysterious masked swordsman who defends the Mexican peasants and commoners of Las Californias. Don Rafael Montero, the corrupt governor of the region, sets a trap for Zorro at a public execution of three innocent peasants. Zorro stops the execution, and Montero’s soldiers are thwarted by two young brothers, Alejandro and Joaquin Murrieta. Zorro fights the remaining Spanish soldiers and thanks the Murrieta brothers by giving Joaquin a silver medallion. Don Montero suspects de la Vega of being Zorro and attempts to arrest him at his home. A swordfight begins, a fire breaks out, and de la Vega’s wife Esperanza, whom Montero held unrequited love for, is shot and killed during the ensuing scuffle. While Diego’s home burns, Montero takes his infant daughter, Elena, as his own before sending de la Vega to prison and returning to Spain.
Twenty years later, Alejandro and Joaquin are bandits, running a scam with Three-Fingered Jack to collect the bounty on their heads and steal a strongbox. Before they can escape with the money, they are caught by Captain Harrison Love, Montero’s new American right-hand man. Jack and Joaquin are captured while Alejandro escapes, and Joaquin shoots himself rather than be executed by Captain Love. Love then beheads Joaquin’s corpse and takes the head. Montero returns to California as a civilian, alongside Elena, who has grown into a beautiful woman and resembles her late mother. Montero’s reappearance motivates de la Vega to escape from prison. He encounters Alejandro getting drunk and recognizes the silver medallion he gave his brother as a boy. De la Vega learns Murietta is on a similar quest for vengeance on Captain Love for his brother’s death and agrees to make Alejandro his protégé, recruiting him to be the new Zorro. Alejandro agrees to undergo de la Vega’s training regimen in Zorro’s secret cave underneath the ruins of his family estate to be able to take revenge.