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Anthony Hopkins reprises Douglas Fairbanks' classic depiction of Zorro from the 1920 silent film Mark of Zorro - - and it was Fairbanks' idea to go with the all-black look for the entirely fictional pulp hero created by Winston McCulley -- while Banderas is resurrecting the Tyrone Power Zorro of 1940. I thought Hopkins was dashing, clever, and classy in the role of the freedom fighter. (No longer just a Robin Hood easing the repressions of imperialist Spain by robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, this time he seeks to empower the masses by toppling the fascist state Mexico has become under Spanish rule.)
Further research shows us that Banderas' arch-rival in the film, Captain Love, seems to get his name from Montagu Love, the actor who played Power's father Alejandro de la Vega in the 1940 version, and Banderas' character's name, Alejandro Murrietta, derives his surname from a real-life freedom fighter of 1820s Mexico.
Banderas' character is pure peon, but Hopkins' Zorro doesn't dismiss his potential, as befits a so- called "traitor to his class." Together they topple the plans of the evildoing repressive regime, although apparently not the framework of that regime, the rigid class structure. Even Banderas' trumped-up peon wants the good life, I guess. Would Bruce Wayne give up his billions, his Batcave and his Batmobile? Unthinkable (apparently).
Somehow the filmmakers slipped this bit of anti-elitist, anti-fascist propaganda past the corporate censors. Good for them, I say.
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