Review of Zorro: Return to the Future (Review)
Tuesday, 18th September 2007, 03:18

Introduction
Without Zorro, there'd be no Batman!

Look carefully enough, and you'll see that DC's Dark Knight owes a lot to Zorro, Johnston McCulley's folkhero swordsman and alter ego of Spanish-California nobleman Don Diego de la Vega; the mask and cape, the nobility, the underground lair, the reliance on athleticism and cunning as opposed to preternatural strength or powers, and of course, the massive gas-guzzling automobile and the teenage sidekick called Robin.

Funnily enough, circle of life and all that, the new updated version of Zorro, set in 'the future', plays out an awful lot like Batman. Gadgets, gizmos and old geezers looking after the manse, although in this case a dotty old lady called Mrs Mc-something. Teenager Diego finds a letter from his grandfather which tells him he's next in line to be Zorro, which is just as well as the corrupt mayor (looking very Kingpin-esque) has only taken his old man hostage. Armed to the teeth with motorcycles, double-edged lightsabre looking thingies and a totally rad underground pad, Diego, along with the obligatory sidekick with glasses who's no good in a fight but builds really cool stuff, are going to go and rescue him.

Fly, Tor-nah-do, fly!

Video
The review disc was a DVD-R (tut-tut), so although it's highly unlikely any changes will be made before the final pressings, the quality may improve on the retail disc. Fullscreen 4:3 (although it actually appears to be 16:9 anamorphic horizontally squashed into the frame/refusing to unpack -- see screenshots), it's unnaturally bright - almost painfully so at times - but it shows off a rather lush and vibrant palette. However, the animation is rather sterile and awfully square-looking and the transfer is plagued with terrible edge enhancement and aliasing, but then if the target audience know what the latter are, let alone notices them, I'll eat my caballero.



Audio
Again, as it's a DVD-R disc, the only audio track available for review was MPEG 2.0; it was fine and clear. Presumably the retail DVD will feature a Dolby Digital 2.0 track, but then it wouldn't be the first 'street' disc with MPEG-encoded audio to pass through these parts.



Features
Extras? Couldn't tell you.



Conclusion
I'd like to say I've seen worse 'toons than this new incarnation of Zorro, but modern kid-friendly action animation from the west is all so bland (with a side of bland) that they're all as bad as one another. That doesn't mean 'Zorro: Return to the Future' is being damned as rubbish, but since the 80s heyday of 'Transformers', 'MASK', 'Centurions', 'Thundercats' and the like, there's only really been 'Batman: The Animated Series' that's risen above mediocre scripting, animation and action to produce a cartoon that doesn't treat its target audience as indifferent and incapable of enjoying good entertainment. This is nothing as interesting as that, so what we have here is a pretty mundane kids show. It's passable, although only the notion of goons with laser pistols renders it vaguely futuristic, and it's faithful to the Zorro 'mythology', so the attempts to update Zorro for the new millennium are something for the grown-ups to laugh at as they hoover under outstretched legs. Although I expect the fact that it's cheap and lasts for 60-minutes is the best reason to buy if you fancy getting your stocking fillers in early.