By Nicholas Ware
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The Lone Ranger represents everything that is wrong and typical with summer movies. It was excessively expensive to produce ($250 million dollar budget and beset by production issues), overlong (2 and a half hours), an unoriginal proposition (based on a popular if less-than-prominent television series), overstuffed (the film must have at least three if not five climaxes), socially problematic (Johnny Depp playing a fictionalized version of a Comanche and not staring far enough away from "redface" as one might like), and needlessly bombastic and violent (if you're into dudes getting hurt on/around/by coal-powered trains, this is your new favorite movie). It also manages, despite these and other issues, to be the kind of popcorn-munching, dumb-fun spectacle that producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski, and star Johnny Depp did right the first time with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and managed to muck up entirely with that film's three sequels. The Lone Ranger isn't quite that return to form--Tonto will not be inspiring any Michael Bolton big, juicy, sexy hooks for Lonely Island songs the way Jack Sparrow did--but it does correct course enough to be a worthy excursion into the absurd realm of the summer action film.
The Lone Ranger represents everything that is wrong and typical with summer movies. It was excessively expensive to produce ($250 million dollar budget and beset by production issues), overlong (2 and a half hours), an unoriginal proposition (based on a popular if less-than-prominent television series), overstuffed (the film must have at least three if not five climaxes), socially problematic (Johnny Depp playing a fictionalized version of a Comanche and not staring far enough away from "redface" as one might like), and needlessly bombastic and violent (if you're into dudes getting hurt on/around/by coal-powered trains, this is your new favorite movie). It also manages, despite these and other issues, to be the kind of popcorn-munching, dumb-fun spectacle that producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski, and star Johnny Depp did right the first time with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and managed to muck up entirely with that film's three sequels. The Lone Ranger isn't quite that return to form--Tonto will not be inspiring any Michael Bolton big, juicy, sexy hooks for Lonely Island songs the way Jack Sparrow did--but it does correct course enough to be a worthy excursion into the absurd realm of the summer action film.
First, the bad. The Lone Ranger is not a sensitive film. It's not sensitive to the real past of the United States, it's not sensitive to minorities, it's not sensitive to the veracity of the Texas landscape and it's not sensitive to your schedule. The movie opens with one of the most unnecessary framing devices ever conceived and unfortunately does not abandon it. This adds 10 minutes of bloat to an already stuffed-to-stretching flick and is easily the most boring and worthless time spent in an 150 minute movie that drags often at that length and could have been crackerjack at 110 minutes. Once the story gets going, though, we're introduced to lawyer-quickly-turned-deputy-Texas-Ranger John Reid, played by Winklevoss doppelganger Armie Hammer. The character is a typical stick-up-the-chute city boy thrust into the wild west with a complex about the brother his father always preferred and the sister-in-law he always had a thing for. He crosses paths--not for the last time, obviously--with Depp's Tonto, a wholly fictional and, surprisingly, only mildly offensive Comanche bounty hunter of sorts, who is after Butch Cavendish, a grotesque outlaw with a cannibal streak. And that's just the start. Depp spends the movie hidden behind his make-up (inspired by the Kirby Sattler painting I Am Crow) and never manages to make Tonto more than than a cipher, though the character's plot removes him from the "noble savage" archetype. Hammer, of course, quickly learns that the West is indeed wild and that sometimes when justice is outlawed only outlaws can find justice.
The progression of the plot takes plenty of detours. Helena Bonham Carter's presence as one-legged brothel madam with a deadly prosthetic--done more vitally and gleefully in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror--has absolutely no relevance to the goings-on and is shoehorned in for a late appearance in the film after her initial, shoehorned, introduction. The major players in the film--two heroes two villains, and both damsel and child in distress--end up in the same place at the same time with infuriating frequency, creating expectations beyond exposition that take hours to materialize. However, when the action set pieces hit--especially late in the film--they are spectacular any every dollar of the obscene budget ends up on screen.
Much of the appeal of The Lone Ranger lies in its willing oddness. Nearly 20 years ago, Johnny Depp starred in Jim Jarmusch's neo-Western Dead Man, and the plots of the two films feature a striking number of similarities (with Hammer's Ranger experiencing similar circumstances to Depp's previous character). Even a PG-13 variation of Dead Man's signature line--"Stupid ****ing white man."--gets repeated by Tonto in Lone Ranger. There are other references to previous films (the previously-mentioned unnecessary framing device functions almost solely as a reference to Once Upon A Time in the West) that almost seem like inside jokes and certainly work more as empty reflection than a rich tapestry unto themselves. However, the fact that a $250 million dollar budget ended up being used to remediate elements of Dead Man and other, better films is almost noble. Almost.
Tom Wilkinson manages the best acting performance (though William Fichtner's having tons of fun under tons of make-up playing the grotesque Cavendish) and the roller-coaster steam engine final(ish) sequence is wonderfully breathless if distractingly virtual. There's a solid hour-and-fifty minutes of high-quality entertainment packed into Lone Ranger's lardy haunches. Summer filmgoers whose main concern is air conditioning and explosions can easily forgive the film its other 40 restless ticks of the clock. Let's be honest: that's a better ratio than most.
The Lone Ranger opens today at all major multiplexes in the Central Florida area. Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence and some suggestive material. Run time 2 hours 29 minutes.
