Zorro is a masked man who rights wrongs and avenges injustices in Spanish California.

This movie is so wonderful on so many levels. Firstly, Mr. Otter and I are fanatic Californians, and love having our own folk hero, albeit one created out of whole cloth starting in 1919...no, sorry, folks, Zorro isn't an ancient 'Robin Hood' style legend, he's a recent construct...but what fun! And of course, easy to film, if you can (nowadays) find an area of California secluded enough for filming...

And then there's Anthony Hopkins, playing the older Zorro engaged in training the next generation Zorro in what to do and how to do it. I'm not surprised that Hopkins swashes his buckle with aplomb and elegance, but damn, it's nice to see. He's just wonderful here...and of course, he's training Antonio Banderas, a Serious Honey, oh my yes. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the girl, and she gets to kick a little bit of booty, that's a good thing. She's not a honey at all, don't like her much...but she does fine as the love-interest.

There are a lot of good bit parts too, such as the evil captain (of what? Mr. Otter couldn't make heads or tails of the pseudo US uniform he was wearing...) and Three Fingered Jack, and the bad guy, Don Raphael...and the fights, action and repartee are top notch.

But then there's the fact that this takes place in relatively recent history...although this fact seems to have escaped the filmmakers attention somewhat, since pretty much every historical detail in this film is wrong. This was the movie that made me coin the description for the 'historical no-brainer' rating...people asked me how I liked this and I'd do the following:

• Open the top of my skull with one hand
• Remove my brain with the other
• Close the top of my skull again while carefully holding the brain in my other hand
• Showing brain: "See this? This is the part of my brain that knows stuff about history!"
• Toss brain behind me over shoulder
• "Gee! That was a GREAT MOVIE!!!"