Line #15 Film/TheLegendOfZorro


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_legend_of_zorro.jpg]]
2	->''"It seems we have a fly in the ointment... or should I say a fox? Zorro."''
3	-->-- '''Jacob [=McGivens=]'''
4
5	''The Legend of Zorro'' is a 2005 {{swashbuckler}} film and the sequel to ''Film/TheMaskOfZorro''. Like the first, it was directed by Creator/MartinCampbell and stars Creator/AntonioBanderas and Creator/CatherineZetaJones.
6
7	Ten years after the last film's events, the demands on Zorro are putting a strain on Alejandro and Elena's marriage, so they have a temporary trial separation. Meanwhile, a new SmugSnake (Creator/RufusSewell) has entered the scene with eyes on both Elena and UsefulNotes/{{California}}, whose impending statehood is imperiled when Alejandro uncovers yet another conspiracy to carve the state and hand it over to various baddies. Cue a desperate battle on multiple fronts to win the day and the girl.
8	----
9	!!This sequel has examples of:
10
11	* AncientConspiracy: The Knights of Aragon. According to Padre Felipe, they ruled Europe from the shadows for many centuries. Now they're plotting to cause a civil war in the USA to prevent it becoming a rival to their power.
12	* AnimalReactionShot: Zorro manages to land his horse on top of a moving carriage train, only to notice that it's about to enter a tunnel. There's a shot of the horse's eyes widening.
13	* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
14	** Some of the most glaring ones in the film, which is set in 1850, are the role of the Confederate States of America (which weren't formed until 1861), the First Transcontinental Railroad (which wasn't completed until 1869; in fact, California wouldn't gain its first railroad until 1856) and the California Statehood Referendum which is entirely fictitious. On top of that, Abraham Lincoln, who is shown welcoming California into the Union, ''never'' traveled to the state, as president or otherwise.
15	** In 1850s California, it would be almost impossible for an upper class woman like Elena to divorce her husband and raise her children alone without her social standing ruined. Doubly so for a state which then still retained Mexican Catholic culture, where divorce remains prohibited in canon law without special dispensation.
16	* AssholeVictim: What happens to the two Pinkerton agents eventually. They weren't proper villains and at their most antagonistic, they were merely obstructive InspectorJavert characters who saw no need for Zorro and had their own ideas on how to save the country. But after [[spoiler:{{blackmail}}ing Elena into divorcing Alejandro or else they'd release Zorro's identity to all his enemies and drive Zorro's life into the mud]], they had built up enough HateSink characteristics that nobody can really hate Count Armand all that much when he finally [[spoiler:kills the two Pinkerton agents off]], despite being a HateSink character himself who smugly treats Alejandro with disdain and tries to woo Elena openly in front of him.
17	* BadassBystander: The Cortez couple seem to be set up to be another pair of helpless victims in need of rescuing. Turns out they're ''quite'' capable of putting up a fight when pushed to it.
18	* BadassFamily: Not only we have the current Zorro Alejandro, but his (ex-)wife Elena, a reluctant spy of Pinkerton agents, hasn't lost her passionate {{Action Girl}}hood to motherhood, and their son Joaquin can also sneak around and hold his own against adults. In the climax, they all team up to stop the BigBad from [[spoiler:using a train filled with explosives to cause the United States of America to tear itself apart]]. The family also has from the previous film Elena's late father Don Diego de la Vega, the previous Zorro, and Joaquín Murrieta, Alejandro's late brother who wasn't a slouch either.
19	* BadassPreacher: Padre Felipe. A scrawny-looking, unassuming priest who punches out mooks (and who braves bullets to conceal Zorro's identity)? That approaches even Zorro's level of badass.
20	* BaldOfEvil: Armand's BattleButler doesn't have a hair on his head.
21	* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Elena runs across a dirt field at full speed, fights with a shovel, runs back across the same field at full speed, falls in the dirt at least once, and when she gets back to her room her white nightgown is spotless and she doesn't have a hair out of place.
22	* BelligerentSexualTension: Elena and Alejandro, in varying proportions, for most of the film. But especially the first time they meet after Alejandro learns that Elena has been working for the Pinkertons, when they get in a fiery argument that ends like this:
23	-->'''Elena:''' When I said we were never meant to be together... I meant it.\
24	'''Alejandro:''' Finally, we agree on something!\
25	''[they kiss passionately]''
26	* BigBad: Armand is the mastermind of the entire plot.
27	* BondVillainStupidity: While it's also an EvenEvilHasStandards moment where Count Armand shows himself to have a tiny bit of morality by not executing Zorro on the spot in front of his wife and son, his decision to not immediately kill his foe and to just ride off on his train with Elena and Joaquin ends about as well for him as you'd expect, with Zorro escaping death and coming right for him immediately afterwards.
28	* ButtMonkey: [=McGivens=] only exists to get hurt and humiliated. He lost all his teeth just in the first reel. [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl Even his death is undignified]].
29	* ClarkKenting: Alejandro was so good at playing the UpperClassTwit that he had his own son Joaquin fooled.
30	* CorporalPunishment: Joaquin's teacher is strict, and resorts to punishing unruly students with a cane to maintain discipline, leading to a mock-SwordFight with the boy.
31	* CultureClash: The film has elements of this, contrasting the Hispanic trappings of the old California to the increasingly Wild West aesthetic of the to-be-American state.
32	* DeathByLookingUp: [=McGivens=] ends up defeated, with his head right below a nitroglycerin container which is leaking a drop. [[OhCrap Cue terrified look and scream]].
33	* DidYouActuallyBelieve: A heroic example occurs when Armand confronts Elena about the true reason she pretended to be falling for him.
34	-->'''Elena''': Did you actually think that I would be swept off my feet by a sadistic coward like you?\
35	'''Armand''': I thought you were a woman of vision.\
36	'''Elena''': Ah, vision. I could barely stomach the sight of you, Armand. The only way I could bear your touch was to imagine you were Alejandro.
37	* DoesntKnowTheirOwnChild: Elena quizzes Alejandro on details of their son Joaquin's life to make a point that he's so busy being Zorro that he's being a poor father.
38	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Elena marries a rich tycoon who creates weapons of mass destruction and hides them in wine bottles. 'Sounds a lot like a ''Film/{{Notorious\|1946}}'' 1946 movie.
39	* TheDragon: [=McGivens=] is a bandit hired by Armand to act as muscle in his schemes.
40	* DramaticUnmask: Zorro gets captured and unmasked by the bad guys, who also have his wife and child in tow. Elena already knows his identity as do the audience; the only important character it's a reveal for is his son.
41	* DrowningMySorrows: What would YOU do if you lost your wife to a smarmy, rich French dude?
42	* DualWielding: Early into the train swordfight, Armand reveals his rapier actually separates into a matching pair (eliciting a "wow" from Zorro) and tries to overwhelm Zorro who is still using only one. Armand kicks Zorro's sword out of his hand, so that it gets stuck in the ceiling, and tries to skewer Zorro using both swords, but Zorro catches the blades with his cape and steal Armand's swords, using them to cut a "Z" in Armand's waistcoat. Not one to give up easily, Armand pulls Zorro's rapier back out of the ceiling and grabs yet another sword from the rack as he exits the passenger car, leading to some dual-on-dual fighting atop the wood car.
43	* DunceCap: The cap is seen in Joaquin's class, worn by a student who asked to go to the bathroom.
44	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Father Felipe gets a nice one when five minutes into the film, he's telling the man who just shot up a plaza to bugger off in no uncertain terms. While standing right in front of him, unarmed.
45	* EternalSexualFreedom: The film is set in mid-19th century California. The wealthy and socially prominent main characters (Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones) get divorced, and the woman continues to raise their son and is apparently still socially prominent. And remember that this is Spanish-Mexican California, a ''Catholic'' culture, where divorce was even more intolerable than in Protestant countries, although loopholes did of course exist.
46	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Armand can be convinced not to execute a father in front of his son.
47	* EvilCounterpart: Jacob [=McGivens=] to Father Felipe. As [=McGivens=] himself puts it, "we're both men of God."
48	%%* FrenchJerk: Armand.
49	* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: Despite being rated PG (compared to the first film's PG-13 rating), ''Legend'' has a few violent deaths, including the film's villain [[spoiler: being tied to the front of a train and having his body slam into debris on the tracks onscreen]]
50	* {{Flynning}}: As explained [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARbcD3lhXEU here]] by Matt Easton of WebVideo/ScholaGladiatoria, the swordplay of the final duel is classic Hollywood swashbuckling: exciting, but less than practical.
51	** Wielding rapiers, Zorro and Armand both elect for SliceAndDiceSwordsmanship instead of relying on thrusts, which they only attempt a couple of times. Whenever one of them does thrust, they do it in a way that makes them vulnerable, since when Armand tries it inside the car Zorro captures both of his swords, and when Zorro tries a thrust on the side of the locomotive, Armand strikes it from his hand, leaving it to be crushed by the train's wheels.
52	** Instead of closing the opponent's line of attack while advancing into distance to deliver a thrust, as a fencer is supposed to do, they spend a lot of time artfully swatting at each other's blades from out of distance, meaning that they aren't even getting close enough to hit each other. To be fair, a lot of this is hard to notice unless you slow the footage down because the film-makers make the characters look like they're at closer range through some clever ForcedPerspective and fast-paced editing: you get a better idea of the actual distance whenever they circle around each other or attempt ''corps-a-corps'', such as elbows or kicks that were out of distance but made to look like they connected.
53	** Obvious kills are missed. Several times Zorro dodges a wild swing by Armand that ends up missing by a huge margin. On the side of the boiler, immediately after the explosion caused by Elena throwing Armand's henchman from the train, Armand considerately continues to give ground while Zorro is busy climbing over an obstacle, instead of skewering Zorro while his guard is down.
54	** There's a BladeLock where Zorro and Armand each use their empty hand to grab the other's sword arm, and they glower at each other while ineffectively pushing against each other for three seconds before Armand manages to throw Zorro on his back. A headbutt or a knee would have ended that quicker.
55	** Rather egregiously, Zorro manages to knock Armand off the wood pile and into the cab of the engine, disarmed of his weapons. Zorro knocks Armand further back with a kick to the face, performed while hanging from the roof of the cab. Instead of dropping into the cab and finishing off his momentarily helpless opponent, Zorro inexplicably climbs back up on the roof and calmbers out onto the boiler, giving Armand an opportunity to pull himself together, grab a gun, and take a shot at Zorro.
56	* GoryDiscretionShot: When [=McGivens=] dies, we only hear the blast of nitroglycerin falling in his face.
57	* GratuitousSpanish: Tornado even only accepts Alejandro's orders once he speaks in Spanish, and Zorro asks Joaquin to talk with him ''"en la lengua de nuestros padres"'' in an attempt to prevent Joaquin recognizing his voice.
58	* GreenEyedMonster: Alejandro is insanely jealous of Elena and Count Armand's courtship of her.
59	* HairTriggerExplosive: The villains' plan involves a train full of nitroglycerine. To demonstrate one tosses a small drop onto the floor causing a huge explosion.
60	* HappilyMarried: Yeah, there was the separation phase, but that was mostly because [[spoiler: Elena was blackmailed into it]]. For the most part, Alejandro and Elena are this.
61	* HateSink: [=McGivens=] seems to be written as unlikable as possible to justify his status as a ButtMonkey. He's an ugly, [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racist]], {{Jerkass}} who's willing to murder [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and a priest [[{{Hypocrite}} despite claiming to be a man of god]]. Unlike Love from the previous film, he isn't even particularly menacing or dangerous, coming off as ineffectual and buffoonish.
62	* ICallHimMisterHappy: Alejandro, in a drunken stupor after the humiliation at Count Armand's party, ranted about making Elena jealous so she'd go back to him.
63	-->'''Alejandro:''' Nobody leaves my ''tequila worm'' dangling in the wind!
64	* IllTakeThatAsACompliment: Elena says this [[ShutUpHannibal in defiance to Armand]] when he says her stepfather would be ashamed that she's become "nothing more than a common woman devoted to a common man".
65	* ItBelongsInAMuseum: Two Pinkerton agents capture Zorro and claim that the days of vigilantes are over.
66	-->'''Pinkerton agent:''' ''[showing Zorro his mask]'' This belongs in a museum. So do you.
67	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Joaquin's teacher was pretty strict and willing to physically discipline his students (albeit failing at it with Joaquin). However, as soon as he sees [=McGivens=] and his gang when he was with his students, he immediately puts himself in front of his students, showing his willingness to protect them despite his harsh exterior.
68	* JustTrainWrong: The driver of the bad guy's train is hit by a piece of wood and falls against the throttle, shoving it forward and [[RunawayTrain causing the train's speed]] and boiler pressure to dramatically increase. Pushing the throttle forward would actually close it, making the train slow down (and eventually stop) while a rise in speed would cause the boiler pressure to decrease.
69	* KickTheDog: Basically what the Pinkerton agents did to Alejandro when they [[spoiler: blackmailed Elena into divorcing him and made his life miserable]]. Suffice to say, nobody feels sorry for them when Alejandro finally gets his hands on the two. [[spoiler: They don't live long afterwards, since Armand was on to them anyway.]]
70	* KissOfDistraction: When Armand is about to offer Elena a wedding gift on his knees, she hastily kisses him to prevent him from noticing Alejandro who's hanging over them at the balcony.
71	* LamarckWasRight: Don Alejandro de la Vega's son, Joaquin, seems to have inherited his father's taste for social justice and swordfighting skills despite the fact that he has no idea his father is actually Zorro.
72	* LargeHam: Zorro himself.
73	--> '''Alejandro:''' [[AC: No-one]] leaves my ''[[ICallHimMrHappy tequila worm]]'' dangling in the wind!
74	* TheLegendOfX: Of Zorro.
75	* LightIsNotGood: [=McGivens=] kills people because he believes he is doing God's work, and often quotes the Bible.
76	* LighterAndSofter: Overlapping with DenserAndWackier. The first movie was fairly serious, this one ramps up the comedic while trying to appeal more to children (including a big role for Joaquin).
77	* LovesMyAlterEgo: Joaquin idolizes Zorro, but thinks his father is a loser, without realizing that they're both the same man.
78	* MeaningfulRename: Happens between movies to Alejandro Murrieta who has since adopted Don Diego's surname De la Vega. This may raise some questions due to Elena being a De la Vega by birth yet also Alejandro de la Vega's wife. A man taking the woman's surname in marriage would be very unusual for Hispanic culture at the time, to say the least. A tie-in sequel book for ''Mask of Zorro'' made years before ''Legend'' explained that Alejandro posed as "Del Castillo", the nobleman alias he uses in ''Mask'', until he discovered that Don Diego had named Del Castillo his heir in his will, making him De la Vega. Elena officially was still known as Montero until she got married.
79	* MoodWhiplash: Alejandro goes from a drunk-yet-comical rant to shock after the explosion, which unbeknownst to him, is a test of a nitroglycerin bomb by the BigBadEnsemble.
80	* NitroExpress: The hero and the villain have a swordfight [[TraintopBattle on top of a train]] loaded with nitroglycerin.
81	* OfCourseISmoke: Elena gets rid of [[RomanticFalseLead Armand]] so she can talk to Alejandro by asking him to buy her a pipe. [[BrickJoke Much later]], after she and Armand have had dinner, a servant brings "her" pipe. Initially she says she needs her stomach to settle first, but when she needs an excuse to be out on the balcony, she's forced to light up.
82	-->'''Armand:''' Are you all right?\
83	'''Elena:''' Fine.\
84	'''Armand:''' My God, you're turning green.
85	* OhCrap:
86	** Elena reacts this way when she discovers that [[spoiler:her messenger pigeon was cooked and served to her as dinner by Ferroq. Gets worse when she attempts leaving and finds the bodies of the Pinkertons.]]
87	** Armand's reaction when he's tied to the cowcatcher of a train about to crash into a barrier. Did we mention the train is also full of nitroglycerin?
88	** As mentioned above, [=McGivens=] when seeing death is imminent.
89	* PaperThinDisguise:
90	** At two points in the film Zorro disguises himself by just throwing on something to cover his black outfit and wearing a different hat with the brim pulled down low to hide his mask.
91	** Zorro's son is unable to recognize his own father's face or voice, while talking to him, because part of Zorro's eyes are covered by his facemask, and Zorro insists on keeping Joaquin's gaze elsewhere.
92	* PassingTheTorch: The alternate ending does this with the aging Alejandro and his now-adult son Joaquin. This was changed, though, in order to allow for more possible sequels with the same actors.
93	* PetTheDog: When Alejandro is captured and unmasked in front of Joaquin, Armand is fully willing to execute Alejandro through Elena's begging (especially considering he puts two and two together and realizes Elena's romance with him has been a cover for her investigation for the Pinkerton agents), until she finally pleads for him not to do it in front of their son Joaquin.
94	* PinkertonDetective: Pinkerton agents extort Elena, the wife of Zorro, to help them investigate a secret society trying to prevent the 1850 admission of California to the Union. Rather anachronistically, since the Pinkertons weren't formed until after that event.
95	* PocketProtector: [[spoiler:Padre Felipe appears to die from a shot, but then he comes back later and reveals that he was saved by his crucifix necklace]].
96	-->'''Zorro:''' Thank God, you're alive.\
97	'''[[spoiler:Padre Felipe]]:''' [[spoiler:''[pulls out cross with bullet embedded in it]'' I already did.]]
98	* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: [=McGivens=] insults Alejandro for being "a mixed breed dressed like a white man."
99	* PrisonChangesPeople: Played for laughs when Joaquin breaks Alejandro out of prison. A few guards come running, and Alejandro thrashes them in about five seconds flat. When a surprised Joaquin asks him where he learned that, he quips, "Prison changes a man, son."
100	%%* PsychoForHire: [=McGivens=].
101	* RacingTheTrain: A version of this happens when Alejandro's son does this with the horse, Tornado, is racing to catch up to the train.
102	* RedRightHand: [=McGivens=] has a cross shaped scar and wooden teeth.
103	* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: Both villains do this before they die.
104	* ShareTheMalePain: When one of the mooks hurts his tender parts in the opening fight, Zorro winces in sympathy.
105	* ShoutOut: [[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade "This belongs in a museum...and so do you."]]
106	* ShovelStrike: Elena attempts to fend off some attackers with a shovel.
107	* SkipToTheEnd: The remarriage has to be rushed because the Zorro Bell is ringing.
108	* SliceAndDiceSwordsmanship: Zorro and Armand hardly do anything but cut with their rapiers. The few times they do try thrusting, it ends up working against them.
109	* SwitchToEnglish: Inverted. After the title character rescues his son from the BigBad's gang, they start a conversation in English. Then Zorro cuts the conversation off and requests that they converse in "the language of our fathers", Spanish, seemingly as a way of keeping Joaquin from recognizing his voice. The rest of the conversation occurs in Spanish with English subtitles.
110	* SwordFight: Most notably, the climactic fight of Zorro and Armand on the train loaded with nitroglycerin.
111	* ThrownFromTheZeppelin: After the AncientConspiracy members hear Armand's evil plans, one disagrees. As a result, Armand demonstrates his secret weapon -- nitroglycerin -- by throwing a small bottle of it on him.
112	* TraintopBattle: At the climax of the film, Alejandro has to rescue his family from a moving train. He has to fight mooks on the roof of the train to get aboard, and his final fight with Armand also spends some time on top of the train.
113	* TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot: The final train carriage, containing Joaquin and Tornado, is uncoupled and left behind. Even though the rest of the train is vanishing over the horizon at full speed by the time they get out of the carriage, they are able to get ahead of it in time to do a plot-relevant thing.
114	* UnderestimatingBadassery: [=McGivens=] insults Count Armand, whose face flashes a scowl for a second before grabbing a knife and slamming his face against a wooden table. He then pointed the knife at the man's tongue.
115	-->'''Count Armand:''' ''[in a state of TranquilFury]'' This dagger, Mr. [=McGivens=]... Jake... has been in my family for generations. If you ever talk to me like that again... I will cut out your tongue and I'll feed it to my dogs. Understood?
116	* UndersideRide: Joaquin trails the [=McGiven=]'s gang by clinging to the underside of their wagon.
117	* UndressingTheUnconscious: Alejandro is awakened by a maid in a hotel and is [[WhatDidIDoLastNight perplexed to find he's naked]]. She explains she had to remove his wet clothes since he went swimming at their fountain after he got drunk. Alejandro [[NakedFreakOut is visibly uncomfortable]] and [[HandOrObjectUnderwear covering himself with his hands]] as she explains since she's also obviously EatingTheEyeCandy... until Padre Felipe walks in and sternly tells her he will be expecting her at confession.

Context Film / TheLegendOfZorro