Problem: negative
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Answer: i was kinda interested in this movie as a trashy cannibal flick. i was thoroughly disappointed. it was the same kind of disappointment i felt watching 'friday the 13th: jason takes manhattan'. so much potential wasted!

the opening scene is a decent attention grabber. then it grinds to a halt. copious breasts and egregious 80s fashion cannot help this movie. the only things eating near this island of cannibal monks are the piranha! i'm not asking for 'cannibal holocaust' level of gore, but i was looking for cheap over-the-top exploitative gore. i got none of that.

i found a couple parts of the fight scenes somewhat intriguing, hence the 2 stars. i don't think its really worth the time it takes to watch it, though. i could see showing it at a party where nobody cares about what is going on and you just want something on in the background. but i would not tell anyone, "oh, dude, you GOTTA see this movie." it is neither good enough nor bad enough to warrant much attention.

Problem: negative
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Answer: I thought this was a great idea but, boy, was it poorly executed. We do get a broad sense of how complex and challenging the backstage operations of a show are, but virtually no specifics about any of it works. The producers don't seem to have found any way to tell a story or give the viewer a "through-line." (Which is not to say they didn't try, but having the stagehands relate a synopsis of the Ring cycle as the program's narrative does nothing to tell us about the job of physically mounting an opera.)

We see lots of things happening, but are told little about what it is that the people are doing and why. There's little sense of who is who, or how the various production departments fit and work together. For instance, several times we hear about a problem of some sort -- one expects then to see the problem and its consequences and/or how it gets resolved. But instead the filmmakers generally just cut to something else (generally, pretty generic footage of people pushing stuff or talking into headsets.)

Overall the film ends up feeling more like a pastiche of images that you'd see run under the closing credits of a show, rather than anything worth watching for its own merit.

Problem: positive
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Answer:
Sitting on the front porch of his Burbank home, Ted Mapes told me that he and Reed Hadley wore the exact same size in every item of clothing except hat.

Ted, one of the greatest of the stunt men, said that every time Zorro put on his mask, he was the one on the screen.

That was a little bit of an exaggeration: There were times that Zorro was obviously Reed Hadley, but in the stunts we can be satisfied it was Ted at work.

And what stunts! "Zorro's Fighting Legion" is, as witness the comments here, one of the greatest of serials. It is exciting and generally very well made.

Reed Hadley was a fine actor, and, as someone else commented, he made a very good fop.

But, admittedly, it is the action that makes this movie so great.

And what else could we expect, with direction by that excellent team, Witney and English, with great music from the amazingly prolific William Lava (the listing here says he was uncredited, but that is incorrect; those other composers listed here were indeed uncredited, and I don't know if they did write any of the music -- it sounds like Lava), and with villainy from, among others, the great Charles King, and with dozens of bit parts?

Also noteworthy was a villain played by the radio Tarzan, Jim Pierce, who was Edgar Rice Burroughs' son-in-law. (I urge you to read his mini-bio.)

There is one chapter that slows things down depressingly, but, heck, it's only a few minutes long (maybe 20) and when you wade through it, well, you're back to the excitement.

Turner Classic Movies deserves a great big THANK YOU for presenting this excellent serial, and we should ask TCM to bring us more.

And we should thank everyone involved that we get to see it as a chapter-play, or serial, and not as a re-cut feature.