The Legend of Zorro

Antonio Banderas puts the silly mask on for a second ride, and this one’s a lot goofier than the first. Zorro is married to Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and their little son is like a mini-Zorro, equipped with major sword-fighting and flipping abilities, even though he’s received no training and doesn’t know that his daddy is Zorro. An evil guy plans to cause terrorist mayhem in the still-forming United States by blowing things up with nitroglycerin extracted from soap. It’s all pretty hokey, but some of the action scenes are a hoot, and the horse gets a lot of laughs. Zeta-Jones burns up the screen again, and her work here is much better than that embarrassing turn in The Terminal. (I’m still recovering from that one.) OK for a Sunday matinee, but a bummer for Saturday night, because it’s too damn long.