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By Sean Molloy
The Lone Ranger is Disney’s long gestating reboot of a hero right out of the silver age of heroes. When black and white ruled television sets, when racial stereotyping was ok to do and when the western was relevant. Times have changed and The Lone Ranger falls off the horse time and time again. In this day and age, the magic that is trying to be portrayed by the “Pirates of the Caribbean” team just is nonexistent. And at nearly 2 hours and 40 minutes, The Lone Ranger can be down right painful.
When you break the movie down, this is another origin story plain and simple. How did The Ranger and Tonto first meet, who drove them together and where did the magic horse “Silver” comes from. What drives the two main characters is probably the most interesting part of the story. Loss of family, entire tribes and not fitting in all are themes that are touched on. Staying on topic, Johnny Depp’s Tonto has the best back-story in the movie, having a very dramatic turn of events. As good as that sounds, it actually works against The Lone Ranger as I can’t figure out why that would lead to this whack “Jack Sparrow” with a crow on his head portrayal.
Depp and Hammer work well on screen together, having decent chemistry throughout the movie but I’m finally at a point where I’m tired of Depp doing these kinds of roles. I want him to go back to drama and avoid movies where he walks funny, bugs out his eyes for comedic effect and grins randomly. Hammer is a solid fit for the role of Dan Reid, the prosecutor turned masked vigilante. The writing for the part is the biggest issue for good old’ Armie. Instead of being a true hero it just seems like he ends up lucky every single time. Tom Wilkinson and William Fichtner play very by the book villains, one out for blood and the other out for financial gain. No big surprise there. They deliver their scenes in a matter which I can complain but I can’t rave about them either. They’re just kind of……there. Meh.
Now comes to my biggest issue with The Lone Ranger. It has no idea what kind of tone it wants to be. Especially when you realize that it’s a Disney movie. Within the first half an hour we have mass killings, cannibalism and an economic development plot. Who the hell green lit this script??? Jeez. The movie really does teeter on an “R” rating at times but then Johnny comes on screen and we forget about thousands of Native Americans dying. Not cool. Going back to Tonto for a second, I could never figure out what accent was happening, Italian, Mexican, Russian? The lack of consistency nearly ruins the character.
The Lone Ranger is a complete mess of a movie; there are some fun action sequences to watch but when it comes down to it. This is something that is not going to connect with an audience and should not have been made.
Grade: D
