The Legend of Zorro (contains spoilers)

I got back half an hour ago from seeing The Legend of Zorro, which is a fun and pretty good (but definitely not great) sequel to The Mask of Zorro, which I can't believe is already 7 years old. I enjoyed The Mask of Zorro much more than this sequel, although I like how they brough back Zorro's repartee with his horse. I don't remember this happening in the 1998 prequel, but this was a common feature of the original series of movies from back in the day. It was nice to have this back (or to have this, if I am remembering incorrectly that the 98 film didn't have it).

Now, Zorro was miraculously successful in saving most people in this film despite the fact that he wears a cape. (It's extremely dangerous for superheroes to wear capes.) Maybe that's because his enemies were monologuing so often?

While the movie was fun and I'm glad I saw it (and I was definitely in the mood for this sort of flick tonight), the plot was ridiculously corny---there was a conspiracy in which a rich French guy was importing/making soap to use to make nitroglycerine to send to the South to make a preemptive strike against the North so that he could plunge the US into self-imploding so that they wouldn't become more powerful than the 1000-year-old secret society of which he was secretly a member. Oh, and he was using a vineyard as a cover for this operation (probably because he's French). The US secret service of the time was also involved in the plot. Another thing is that I don't think a Zorro movie should have so many explosions. It kind of breaks the mood that I think a Zorro movie should have. I wanted more swashbuckling!