Despite PG rating,still exciting

Sometimes overdue sequels fail to capture the magic of the original films. Sometimes kids in action movies ruin the experience. Sometimes movies advertised as "family adventures" only inspire the adventure of leaving the theater disappointed.\nAnd sometimes they rock. "The Legend of Zorro" does indeed rock.\nAntonio Banderas is back as the whip-cracking, high-flying people's champion Zorro, whose double life is straining his relationship with his wife Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and trouble-making young son Joaquin (Adrian Alonso). New enemies of freedom are terrorizing innocent citizens in their plot to employ a powerful new weapon to disrupt state and national unity.\nOf course, only Zorro can stop them.\nThis dances on the border of Saturday morning cartoon territory, but brilliant director Martin Campbell (1998's "The Mask of Zorro" and best James Bond movie "Goldeneye") makes good on the positive promises of such a genre while keeping the negative aspects suppressed. Audience members are treated to pretty faces, pretty places and strong characters.\nMore importantly, Campbell gives us incredibly well-thought and executed action sequences. When Zorro is on the screen, we get to revel in his elegant acrobatics and master-worked swordplay, not to mention the charisma Banderas once again brings to the role. Zeta-Jones also shines again, successfully bringing back the couple's on-screen chemistry while now getting in some swashbuckling of her own.\nBut having a child as a main player is always a dangerous idea, as frequently the kid's presence indulges a younger audience to the extent of becoming ridiculous.\nFortunately, Alonso gives an unprecedented good performance as a youngster in an adventure film. Even if you disagree, you only have to stomach the few short scenes where he takes center stage, which are worth sitting through for the sake of seeing the rest of the movie.\nThe only thing that could hold this movie back is the fact that "Legend" looks to have traded in the grit of a PG-13 rating that deepened "The Mask of Zorro" for the family audience of a PG rating. There's still the setup for the darker themes that strengthened the Banderas Zorro in the first movie, but it feels as though there was a conscious decision made not to act on them.\nThis slightly watered-down effect is the only thing that stops "The Legend of Zorro" from being as good as the first film. Watching it is almost like watching the edited-for-content version of "The Mask of Zorro" that keeps running on TBS; it's a teensy step from being perfectly complete, but it's still very, very good.