The Legend of Zorro

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about The Legend of Zorro's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of The Legend of Zorro completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 14 December 2005.

Overall comments and recommendations

The Legend of Zorro is an action / adventure movie, which successfully delivers light-hearted entertainment with very good acting, despite an unbelievable storyline and lack of character development. It contains both cartoon-like violence and some savage and brutal violence.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie The Legend of Zorro contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

In 1850 the people of California are holding a referendum to determine whether to apply for statehood. Jacob McGivens (Nick Chinlund), a rather unsavoury type with a scar resembling a crucifix carved into the right side of his face, and his band of equally unsavoury henchmen have their own ideas about California joining the Union and steal the ballot box. Fortunately for the people of California, Don Alejandro de la Vega (Antonio Banderas) in the guise of Zorro is amongst the crowd and leaps into action defeating McGivens and regaining the ballot box. Zorro returns home to finds that his wife Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) less than happy, she wants him to hang up his mask and stay at home to father their ten year old son Joaquin (Adrian Alonso). However, Don Alejandro is not yet prepared to retire from his role as Zorro, and as a result the couple part company.

Three months later finds the couple divorced with Don Alejandro residing in a permanent state of drunkenness, while Elena cavorts with her old flame French aristocrat Count Armand (Rufus Sewell). Armand, however, is revealed to have evil plans for destabilising the American government and Zorro and Elena must work together to thwart these plans and keep themselves and their son safe from harm.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

The Legend of Zorro contains frequent violence, and while a percentage of the on-scene violence was presented in a cartoon-like manner, a large percentage of the violence is depicted as callous and brutal. Examples of cartoon-like violence include:

• villains shoot hats from the heads of people
  
• a man is thrown into a patch of cactus plants and walks out with a face full of cactus needles
  
• Zorro and Elena slash their initials in a villain’s pants
  
• Zorro’s son shoots his slingshot at his schoolteacher and various other villains
  
• Zorro’s son engages in a wooden ruler sword fight with his schoolteacher.

Examples of more brutal violence include:

• people are punched in the face
  
• Zorro kicks a villain in the face; the villain spits out teeth and blood
  
• Don Alejandro is viciously slapped across the face in front of his son
  
• Don Alejandro and Count Armand knock each other from their horses with polo mallets
  
• Jacob McGivens holds a large hunting knife to a woman’s throat while threatening to kill her
  
• a man is shot in the chest with a shotgun
  
• a man is stabbed in the bottom with a burning iron poker and catches on fire
  
• McGivens shoots a man in the back
  
• Count Armand holds a dagger to McGivens’ tongue and threatens to cut it out and feed it to his dogs
  
• Don Alejandro’s son is strangled by a villain and then thrown against a wooden grate
  
• McGivens shoots a priest in the chest in front of Joaquin
  
• Count Armand blows a man up by throwing a vial of nitro at him
  
• Elena is threatened by a man with a large curved dagger
  
• there is a brutal fist-fight between McGivens and Zorro
  
• McGivens is killed when a drop of nitro explodes on his forehead
  
• large pieces of wood are thrown into the face of a train engineer
  
• Elena head-butts a villain and then elbows him in the face
  
• Elena is thrown against a wall
  
• Count Armand is entangled on the front of a train as it crashes and explodes

The use of violence by Zorro and Elena is highly glamourised, with both being presented as defenders of the underdog, or protectors of the common people. The appropriateness of their use of violence against others is never questioned, and is always presented as acceptable, justifiable and necessary. Zorro is attractive in appearance and extremely athletic, while Elena is presented as a sort of sensual super woman, whose athletic acts are equal to those of Zorro. Both are very effective and stylish at employing violent acts and nearly always successful.

In contrast, the use of violence by the villains of the story is presented as unjust, cowardly and evil. They are ugly in appearance and clumsy at enforcing acts of violence, which for the most part are unsuccessful.

While much of the violence is presented in a serious manner, many of the violent acts were presented in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Some of the above mentioned violent scenes are of particular concern for children under the age of eight, particularly the more callous and brutal acts of violence such as:

• villains shooting people in the back
  
• villains being set on fire or blown up
  
• Zorro’s son being thrown about, grabbed by the throat and generally roughly handled
  
• a women being physically threatened by having a knife held to her throat
  

In addition very young children could be disturbed by:

• a number of loud, destructive and visually realistic explosions
  
• Elena being chased by two vicious dogs
  
• the physical appearance of Jacob McGivens, who has a badly scared face, green, rotten-looking, wooden teeth, and a threatening manner.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Many children aged eight to thirteen could also be scared or disturbed by the violent events and images as described above. While older children in this age bracket will be able to identify the violence as unrealistic, and not be scared by the threatening visual images, they may still be negatively effected by the violent acts and images presented throughout the film.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Some children over the age of thirteen years could still be negatively affected by the violence in this movie.

Sexual references

The film contains several sexual references, at times only involving subtle facial gestures, and most of which would go over the heads of children under the age of ten years:

• ‘that’s not all we’ve shared” is said with definite sexual connotations
  
• in reference to Elena staying the night with Count Armand, Elena suggests that she wants to be the lady of the house and that perhaps they could “have a late supper.”
  
• the facial expressions of a maid, admiring the semi naked Don Alejandro

Nudity and sexual activity

There is no nudity or sexual activity, although some scenes present both Don Alejandro and Elena in a sexual manner:

• Don Alejandro is seen semi naked, standing in his hotel bedroom with a sheet wrapped around the lower half of his body, while his upper torso was naked.
  
• Elena is always dressed in a sensual manner, wearing dresses with very low cleavage exposing as much flesh as possible.
  
• there are a couple of scenes in which Don Alejandro and Elena are passionately kissing each other.

Use of substances

The film contains numerous scenes involving Don Alejandro consuming large amount of alcohol and resulting in him becoming very intoxicated, including:

• while he is at a party, he consumes several glasses of alcohol one after the other and becomes argumentative and abusive
  later he is shown leaning against a wall while on his horse, in a state of utter drunkenness
  
• Don Alejandro’s horse is also depicted as drunk and leaning against the wall
  
• reference is made to Don Alejandro being so drunk that he falls in a fountain resulting in him being stripped and put to bed by a maid; Don Alejandro has no recollection of this incident
  
• Don Alejandro is shown in a large spa bath with three other men all of whom are drinking alcohol and playing poker

Other drug references include:

• a couple of scenes in which men are smoking cigars
  
• in one humorous scene, Elena smokes a pipe, which makes her turn green and become a little sick. Later Zorro’s horse is depicted smoking the same pipe
  
• Don Alejandro is drugged and becomes unconscious after being jabbed by a needle hidden in a ring.

Coarse language

The film contains infrequent and mild coarse language, including:

• damn
  
• ass
  
• hell
  
• bitch.

The movie's message

The main message of the movie is about Zorro’s fight for justice, defending the underdog. We also see the man Don Alejandro growing up and sorting out life’s priorities, coming to terms with his obligations as a father and husband.

Parents may wish to encourage the manner in which Zorro endures through adversity to defend those who are unable to defend themselves, and how Don Alejandro came to realise his weaknesses as a father and husband.

Parents may wish to discuss the film’s portrayal of violence as the sole means or resolving conflict, and that violence as a means of resolving conflict is not acceptable in the real world and would have serious physical, psychological and legal consequences.