Blu-ray Review: The Legend of Zorro

THE MOVIE: 4 stars out of 5

The Legend of Zorro stars Antonio Banderas as Alejandro de la Vega (a/k/a Zorro) and the beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones as his wife Elena reprising their roles in the 1998 release The Mask of Zorro. A period of 10 years has passed since the end of time period set forth in the prior film with California about to enter the United Sates as a State. In that 10 year period, Zorro has fought against injustice to the detriment of his marriage and family. Despite the fact that he promised his wife that he would give up being Zorro once California enters the Union, he is unable to due both to his own pride and events with conspire together to require his action. An old order of Knights from Europe get together and develop TNT in California which they attempt to sell to Southern states to destroy the Union prior to the civil war, in an effort to prevent the United States from becoming a world power. Agents of the federal government become aware of the plot and recruit Elena to be one of their agents infiltrating the conspiracy by becoming the love interest of their leader and seeking a divorce from Alejandro. Needless to say, Alejandro learns of the plot and becomes involved and they both work together, along with their son, to save the day. This film was a lot of fun and a solid sequel to the original, with plenty of witty dialogue and swashbuckling action. Recommended.

THE VIDEO: 4 5/8 stars out of 5

Encoded with AVC and presented in its original aspect ratio of 2:35:1, The Legend of Zorro looks very, very good. The film has a very stylized look, with the colors being shaded so that they have a golden hue. While the overall color palette is far from accurate and not natural looking at all, it does look striking and boasts beautiful cinematography. Black levels are deep with solid detail. Shadow detail is good as well and the film has a very nice three dimensional look. While the film is a feast for the eyes, I have dropped the score ever so slightly due to the overall soft look of the film. The film simply lacks the razor sharp look of the best HD transfers, although the softness could be deliberate on the part of the director. In any event. despite this softness, it is still an excellent looking film. Does it really get any better than Catherine Zeta-Jones in HD? I don’t think so.

THE AUDIO: 4 7/8 stars out of 5

Presented with an uncompressed 5.1 PCM track at 48 kHz/16 bit, this film sounds fantastic. The overall sound of the film is smooth and open with a totally three dimensional sound scape. Bass is deep and rattles the room without being boomy or distorted. The opening scene of the film sounds simply amazing and will give your system quite a workout. Dialogue is clear and well placed in the mix. The sword fighting scenes are amazing as well with very realistic sounding metal on metal effects placing you right in the action. Feel free to crank this soundtrack up as it still sounds great even at reference levels, never getting fatiguing.

IN CONCLUSION

Legend of Zorro boasts and very good picture and even better sounding audio. While not a deep or thoughtful film by any means, it has plenty of witty dialogue, humor and great swashbuckling action and well worth a look. Recommended.

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