‘Legend of Zorro’ is a good popcorn flick

It’s been seven years since Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones scored one of their biggest international hits with “The Mask of Zorro.” In recent interviews, they claim they had to wait that long to make a sequel because they had trouble rounding up a solid script.

“The Legend of Zorro” is the screenplay that brought them out of big-Z retirement. Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who created last summer’s costly bomb, “The Island,” it’s a similarly strained attempt to mix formulaic escapist elements with contemporary issues: terrorism, corporate corruption, America’s status as a superpower and even weapons of mass destruction.

Still, it works fairly well as a popcorn picture, especially once the exposition is out of the way. Orci and Kurtzman may work too hard setting up a complicated plot, driven by a seductive French aristocrat (Rufus Sewell) and a homicidal religious fanatic (Nick Chinlund), that at first seems to be more trouble than it’s worth. Once it’s in place, however, their narrative delivers several satisfying twists.

Quick facts Starring: Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rufus Sewell, Nick Chinlund, Julio Oscar Mechoso Director: Martin Campbell Run time: 2 hours, 10 minutes MPAA rating: PG

The director, Martin Campbell, who made 1998’s “Mask of Zorro,” is at his best with action sequences: the athletic sword fights (Zeta-Jones again demonstrates a flair for swordplay), a barn fire that turns into a frightening inferno (rarely have flames seemed so inescapable in a movie), and a spectacular train wreck that deserves comparison with the eye-popping finale of “How the West Was Won.”

Once more, Zeta-Jones plays Zorro’s daughter, Elena, and Banderas is Alejandro, Zorro’s disciple and replacement — and now Elena’s husband. The original Zorro, played seven years ago by Anthony Hopkins, does not return, even as an Obi-Wan ghost. At first this seems to be a problem: the Merlin/Arthur relationship that developed between Hopkins and Banderas was, after all, the heart of the first movie.

However, Orci and Kurtzman have come up with a credible substitute father-son relationship. The story takes place 10 years after the events in “Mask of Zorro,” and Elena and Alejandro have a young son, Joaquin (scene-stealer Adrian Alonso), who doesn’t know that his father is the heroic masked man who defends the vulnerable in 19^th century California.

In fact, he’s quite unimpressed with his father, especially when Dad literally turns the other cheek in a dramatic confrontation with Chinlund’s in-your-face villain. It takes Joaquin most of the movie to realize that Zorro and his father are one and the same — and to recognize that his father’s measured reaction to Chinlund’s aggressiveness is not necessarily cowardly.

In addition to Campbell, Zeta-Jones and Banderas, there are several returnees from the 1998 film: composer James Horner, costume designer Graciela Mazon, and cinematographer Phil Meheux, who has worked with Campbell on most of his films.

As a team, Campbell and Meheux establish an understanding of the potential of wide-screen imagery right from the beginning. The opening sequence has an almost three-dimensional quality, as do several of the bravura episodes that follow. “The Legend of Zorro” may be fluff, but it’s fluff with style.

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