Should you watch this if it’s a free movie? No.
Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? No.
Secret ending? Sort of.
Running time: 149 minutes (2.5 hours)
The Lone Ranger is a Western film (in the sense that it’s set in the Wild West, has cowboys and Red Indians) about the adventures of a Red Indian and his sidekick, the eponymous Lone Ranger (a cowboy), as they go about trying to achieve justice.
It was terrible. I only stayed throughout the film out of (dubious) respect to my movie going partner. In return for this I will demand that my friend watches Pacific Rim and other mindless action movies.
So what’s good about the Lone Ranger?
Johnny Depp
He always makes the characters he plays interesting, but he always plays interesting characters. In any case, he makes Tonto an unpredictable wild card, and his sense of comic timing is impeccable – unless the director overplays it. I think it’s borderline over the top, but your mileage may vary. My slight quibble is that he always plays quirky characters the same way, so this isn’t too different from say, Jack Sparrow or Barnabas Collins. Still, he’s always great to watch.
Wild West setting
I’m not hugely interested in the Wild Wild West but the sets are very well done, and most of my time is spent checking out all the interesting bits and pieces that have been incorporated into the set design. The hot, dry weather comes out very well, and trains (and other large mechanical set pieces) are always a treat.
Helena Bonham Carter
Perhaps it’s because the first time I saw her, she was playing Narcissa Malfoy, an already insane and intriguing character, so I always have higher expectations of her characters. She doesn’t fail to deliver. Possibly typecast, but she doesn’t play evil maniacal queen here, although like Johnny Depp, she does quirky very very well.
And that’s about it.
What is it about the Lone Ranger that completely destroys my attention span (despite my focusing all my attention on the movie), forces my brain to shut down no matter how hard I concentrate, and makes me feel that this was a wasted 2.5 hours of my life? I’ll try to quantify it here.
Armie Hammer
He doesn’t give a very good performance in this. His range of emotions go from bewildered to unfathomable and back to bewildered. And to compound this problem, he wears a mask for most of the movie. Ever wondered how difficult it is to emote with a mask on? Ask James Marsden, who plays Cyclops – a character who has his eyes covered up all the time.
Armie Hammer just doesn’t create any empathy for me. He’s not a lovable klutz, though I can see that he was a written to be one. He’s just inept to the point of unbelievability. If the Wild West is so dangerous, why isn’t this buffoon dead by now?
Framing device is annoying
I completely do not see the point of the framing device, which is that this is a recount from a 200-year-old Tonto to a 10-year-old boy in the present day. Is it to show that this story is still relevant? Doesn’t come across. Is it to show that it really happened in the past? I don’t believe it. Is it to show that the sequel will take place in present day? Please no.
No sense of pacing or plotting
The movie really drags its feet in the first one hour. It’s not easing into the story, it’s just rambling on and on and on and on. To the point that when Tonto and the Lone Ranger’s backstory is actually revealed, I don’t care anymore. They’re doing ridiculous things, with no real plan, no real sense of direction, and no real motivation. I might as well watch Jackass, at least I know where that movie is heading. Here, I don’t. And that leads to my next point.
Fails to generate empathy for the characters
Unfortunately, I don’t care about the characters. I really don’t. The Lone Ranger is clearly too stupid to live. Tonto is too ridiculous for me to care about the massacre of his family. And the other characters don’t get enough screentime for me to notice or build up any sort of connection to them.
Story is not about the Lone Ranger
It’s sort of like the Green Hornet, where the story is more about Kato than the Green Hornet. Yet in the Lone Ranger, it doesn’t even try to make an effort. Why not rename the movie to “Tonto and the Lone Ranger” then? Or just “Tonto?” At least there I know what to expect. But because the movie is called “The Lone Ranger,” there is this token lip service that tries to make the story centre around the Lone Ranger, when really all we do care about (if we care) is what happens to Tonto. It’s very badly thought out and poorly executed. There’s no focus to this story.
Nature out of balance?
Not a huge quibble in the grand scheme of things, but I don’t buy that Tonto joins the Lone Ranger out of a sense of respect to nature. That’s the only indication, besides the bird in the hat, that we have of Tonto’s vaunted love of nature. And the whole “theme” (I use parentheses because it barely qualifies as a theme) about nature being out of balance – how does that work in a show where it’s about the modernisation of society and building a railway? A railway is far from nature as you could possibly imagine. What kind of mixed signals is this movie trying to send? Did anybody think this plot through?
It’s a terrible film. You’ve been warned. The best thing you can do with free tickets is to sell them off.
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