When Disney put a halt on the production of The Lone Ranger — a big-budget revival of the popular 1930s radio and 1950s TV Western hero — back in 2011 it did so for precisely the right reasons: “blockbuster” Westerns don’t sell enough tickets. The budget was simply too high to justify its potential box office, and one needs to look no further than Wild Wild West, Jonah Hex, and Cowboys & Aliens. Disney execs suspected that golden child Johnny Depp‘s latest role in pasty makeup would turn out more Dark Shadows than Alice in Wonderland, and they were completely right. But Depp has wanted to play the Lone Ranger’s Native American sidekick Tonto in a Lone Ranger movie since at least 2006, and since Disney sort of owes Depp for the billions made by the Pirates of the Caribbean series and Alice in Wonderland, a few (supposed) budget cuts put the project back on track.
I couldn’t tell you what those cuts entailed though because The Lone Ranger is one of the most special effects-heavy messes I’ve seen in years. Seriously, there’s more CGI flashes in this than a Star Wars prequel. Comparisons to the Pirates series are also unavoidable since Depp’s Tonto is essentially a broken English-speaking Jack Sparrow and the film is directed by Pirates director Gore Verbinski, produced by Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by two of the Pirates writers (Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio), so the tone is the same. In fact, replace the horses with boats and the plains with water and this is Pirates 5. Even the villains look like rejects from one of Captain Barbosa’s crews (with one of them being portrayed so uncomfortably effeminate I’m sure there will be complaints). But that makes this movie a fifth generation photocopy of the very entertaining first Pirates film, which is the best way to describe it.
Of course, I haven’t even mentioned the Lone Ranger himself yet because Depp gets top billing and is obviously the draw here (has there ever been another action or adventure film which had a bigger star as the sidekick than the hero?). Played by Armie Hammer, who should never try doing a Texas accent again because he obviously can’t do one, the Ranger begins the film as John Reid, an educated, John Locke-reading, anti-gun lawyer returning home to Texas after law school to serve his community. He is a complete contrast to his brother Dan Reid (James Badge Dale), a Texas Ranger who married John’s sweetheart Rebecca (Ruth Wilson) while John was out East. John’s desire for his brother’s wife is made immediately clear in their first scene together — remember how subtly Ethan Edwards covets his sister-in-law in The Searchers? When a master of simple expression like John Wayne can do the same action in a more reserved way there’s clearly a problem with being painfully obvious to the audience.
Anyway, John and Dan find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy involving the first transcontinental railroad robber barons which leads to a dead Dan and John eventually becoming the Lone Ranger at Tonto’s urging to avenge his brother’s death and stop the evils of industrialization from overrunning the Native Americans’ traditional way of life… and yes, I know that last part actually did happen anyway in actual history, but this movie will try to convince you otherwise.
Nonetheless, though Hammer is second-billed he could have been replaced by just about any actor since this is clearly the Johnny Depp show. If quirky, family-friendly Depp still cracks you up, you’ll laugh at The Lone Ranger like the people who still buy tickets to Adam Sandler movies. In fact, that’s the worst part of The Lone Ranger — like Sandler’s recent movies, Depp’s performances now consist of offbeat moments that are supposed to get family-friendly crowds rolling in the aisles. Depp won over indie audiences by constantly challenging himself and won over mainstream audiences with his incredibly original portrayal of Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates movie. When was the last time he brought something original to a role? Finding Neverland, ten years ago? Tonto is just another riff on Sparrow in a long line of Depp’s quirky caricatures of Sparrow, and just because Tonto is Native American doesn’t change that. Similarly, Helena Bonham Carter is here in a nothing role as a one-legged woman who runs a brothel that seems to exist only to give Depp’s frequent collaborator a nice payday.
Are you laughing yet? Because Depp apparently thinks this alone is HILARIOUS!
You’d think I couldn’t find anything good in this movie based on my description so far, but you’d be wrong. The twenty-minute climax is a wildly entertaining special effects showcase set to the Lone Ranger’s classic theme (The William Tell Overture). In fact, the sequence is so over the top ridiculous in typical Gore Verbinski/Jerry Bruckheimer fashion that the most entertaining part is trying to anticipate what the next impossible special effect will be, especially with the absurd things that the Ranger’s horse can do, like gallop full speed on top of a moving train that’s winding up a mountain. Then again, he is a magic horse. Or, I didn’t mention that yet? Yes, the Lone Ranger has a magic “spirit horse.” I ended up just flat-out expecting that werewolves, which were reportedly featured in an earlier draft of the screenplay before the budget was slashed, would be thrown in just for the hell of it, especially since Tonto gives the Ranger a silver bullet and his nemesis Butch (William Fichtner) has a taste for human flesh. Alas, Verbinski and Bruckheimer draw the line at werewolves I guess, because there are none to be seen.
Now, because the film’s framing sequence (set in 1933 San Francisco) is told Little Big Man style by a century-old Tonto, an argument can be made that the silly bits result from the way he tells the story. After all, it’s pretty easy to explain major plot holes and impossible effects with “Indian magic,” “spirit horse” and “unreliable narrator” (not necessarily in that order). But that just makes the film any more eye roll inducing and cringe-worthy. Why go supernatural at all? Because it worked for Pirates? But the Lone Ranger story has never been anything like Pirates, so why did these guys even bother spending $250 million making a cowboy movie?!?
Armie Hammer might want to keep the Lone Ranger mask on for a while, not for a sequel (which won’t happen if this bombs the way many expect it will), but because he won’t want people to remember he starred in this film. Unfortunately, Hollywood will do the typical thing if this bombs and blame the Lone Ranger character or (even worse) the Western genre for the low box office. Here’s the truth, folks: the Lone Ranger is a great character that had decades of success in almost every form of entertainment media, and the Western is a reliable genre that some of the greatest filmmakers and actors have worked in throughout film history. This is just a bad, bad movie, one of the most awful I’ve seen all year. And the only thing to blame are the people that tried to make this movie into something it couldn’t be — an over-the-top Bruckheimer blockbuster.
One last note… silly chronological mistakes in movies are completely avoidable in the days of instant research on Wikipedia. In the flashback scene of Tonto’s youth, a reference is made to Sears, Roebuck & Co. Sears didn’t exist in the late 1860s when The Lone Ranger is set, let alone in whatever year Tonto’s youthful flashback was set in. I’m no department store history expert and it stuck out to me, so couldn’t someone have checked this at sometime and just cut the unnecessary reference? Also, did I really also see an old lady eating a hot dog in a bun, something else that didn’t exist in Texas in the 1860s? Coney Island’s Nathan’s would like a word!
Rating: One of the stupidest, cheesiest and dullest “adventure” movies I’ve ever seen. It gets points only for the climax, the William Tell Overture, and the few chuckles Depp provides (3/10).
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