Movie Review

I ended up at the theatre tonight and picked the film that was starting soonest.  It was The Lone Ranger.  Bad reviews and all, I thought I'd take a chance.

Yeah, it was partly a liberal fantasy.  You know, the one about how the capitalists from the railroad teamed up with the troopers to commit genocide on the local Comanches.  Just to satisfy their insatiable desire for wealth and power.  We've seen it all before, so many times.

And yeah, Johnny Depp played an off-kilter, way over-the-top Tonto.  Depp was the star of the movie, and Armie Hammer played a naive and bumbling John Reid, aka Lone Ranger.  Absolutely, I would have much preferred a less eccentric Tonto.  The movie explained the crow on his head, but I still could have lived without that wierd plot device.  The white makeup made no sense, unless you combine it with the crow to round out just how nuts Depp's Tonto must be.

Clearly Disney was hoping to turn The Lone Ranger into the next franchise like Pirates of the Carribean.  It doesn't seem like that's going to work, since this movie has tanked.  But you never know, they might try again.

The positives lie in the action scenes, which are very creatively choreographed and mostly fun to watch.  It's the story itself that probably doomed this movie's box office.

The Ranger and Tonto built a relationship that for most of the movie portrayed Tonto as the hero and the Ranger as a bumbling and clueless white dude who finds success only out of pure luck and/or because he kept getting bailed out by Tonto.  The only explanation for the Ranger's lucky breaks is a strange spiritual thing Tonto seems to believe.  Tonto tells his partner several times that the Ranger can't be killed because he's some kind of Spirit Walker.  Whatever that is.

The white horse that eventually becomes the famous "Silver" is fun.  Depp certainly is a great comic actor, even though I was never quite able to look past his ridiculous costuming and makeup. 

Besides a toned-down Tonto,  I certainly would have preferred to see at least a buddy relationship between the two main characters.  I would have been fine with the Ranger being a bit bumbling and naive at first, but think the film should have transitioned him into an hero much sooner.  The movie makers never did satisfactorily explain why the two guys stayed together - there certainly was almost no evidence of a developing friendship between them.  And Tonto kept calling the Ranger "stupid".

Finally, I found the ending rather disappointing.

Go see it.  Don't expect anything beyond a bit of escapist entertainment, and you'll have a good time.