When I learned that Jean Dujardin, best known here for his Oscar-winning performance in THE ARTIST, was starring in a new series as the legendary masked hero of yore, I started salivating over the chance to screen this new version of “Zorro”. Most of the Zorro productions ever since the first film in the silent era have been written with some degree of levity. This eight-hour French miniseries offers some splendid moments, but winds up going astray. It also varies considerably in concept from all the other incarnations, and not to great advantage.
This Zorro is a middle-aged Don Diego in 1820s’ Los Angeles who hasn’t worn the costume for twenty years. He’s been married for 17, but neither his wife, Gabriella (Audrey Dana) nor his father Don Alejandro (Andre Sussolier) ever learned of his secret identity. He’s now a rather mousy, naïve clerk who’s been working for his dad for over 40 years as a quill-pushing City Hall drudge. When pappy kicks the bucket, Don Diego becomes the new alcalde (mayor), only to learn that he gets less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. That’s the first disconnect. In almost every other version, Diego is smarter and cagier than everyone else, playing the fool or fop as part of his strategy to keep anyone from even thinking he could be the dashing rogue in black. This dufus is hard to reconcile with the skills and savvy he displays when he puts on the disguise from yesteryear for another round of anonymous heroics.
When acting as Zorro, Dujardin and/or his stunt double show all the panache and agility of the best of his predecessors, including the beaming smile during his flashy dispatchings of baddies. But he still remains clueless as his civilian self, as both a public official and as a husband. On the plus side, a couple of figures from the Disney TV series – which many of us likely consider the basis for all comparisons – are revived for this one. Mute aide Bernardo (Salvatore Ficarra), who only pretends to be deaf for gathering intel, is an asset. Comic foil Sgt. Garcia (Gregory Gadebois) who has been the biggest source of laughs in most versions since the Disney days, remains fat and incompetent, but a bit wiser from 20 more years on the job. Just a bit. In the beginning of Episode Three, he gets to shine in one of my favorite scenes from the whole enchilada.
The casting is fine, and the action sequences are quite entertaining. Swordfights are quite unbloody, but highly acrobatic and mostly played for laughs. But the script from four credited writers is a huge disappointment. Some parts are fun – like Don Alejandro’s “ghost” popping up to chastise or annoy his son a bunch of times. But most of the plot makes little sense; the usual big, bad villains are not in the package. I won’t go into details, but Don Diego’s character arc may grow tiresome for you, as it did for me, stretching too little conflict, heroism and enlightenment over too much running time. The first four hours played better than most of the last four.
Perhaps my hopes were too high from loving THE ARTIST and enjoying some of Dujardin’s OSS117 James Bond spoofs. If you tone down your expectations from this caveat, you’ll likely be more satisfied. It’s obvious that the dude still has all his comedy chops intact, even in a vehicle that doesn’t deploy them to maximum advantage.
RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
“Zorro”, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice June 30.
https://watch.mhzchoice.com/zorro
