Saw Once Upon a Time in Mexico last night. Fun movie. Driving home, we decided it was a Mexican movie with an American budget and a Hong Kong action sensibility. Very much the birth of the reluctant hero. By the end of the movie, Antonio Banderas, while still dark and brooding, has found someone to live for – a nation too often crippled by power-mad criminals. He’s on his way to being a modern-day Zorro, only without the funny mask and the penchant for carving Zs on everything. The fun of the movie of course is not just the hero’s journey, but the gloriously outrageous gunfights along the way. And yes, Johnny Depp is fantastic.

It’s a summer movie despite being released in September, and it put an awful lot of this past season’s movies to shame. Proof that action movies can have action, giggles, and a point.