The Lone Ranger (PG-13)
14/03/14 21:19 Filed in: 2013
Starring: Johnny Depp
July 2013
This review was originally tweeted in Real-time from the back row of a movie theater and appears @BackRoweReviews. Though efforts were made to tease rather than ruin this movie’s memorable lines and moments, some spoilers may exist in the following evaluation. The original tweets appear in black, while follow-up comments appear in red. For concerns over objectionable content, please first refer to one of the many parental movie guide websites. All ratings are based on a four star system. Happy reading!
Not to be confused with Arm & Hammer.
Kid looses a red balloon. Don’t worry, it’ll end up in France.
With much appreciation to Lamorisse’s masterwork.
Not so still life at the museum. Guess we’ll be seeing Stiller and Wilson in a minute.
A bird in a cage...nice symbolism.
But overdetermined?
Train wreck not nearly as exciting as the one in Super 8 or as realistic as the one in The Fugitive.
Hammer’s hat is as white as the spirit horse. Nice to see that Western tropes are still alive and well.
Nothing like waking up on top of the world. Good thing the LR doesn’t sleepwalk.
Feeding the rabid rabbits...the movie’s first silly scene.
It just doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie, which works very hard to establish the “reality” of its world.
Spirits for the spirit horse.
We’ve seen this gag in a thousand Westerns and it just never seems to get old.
Do horses really eat scorpions?
Nice montage during the prayer.
Moonlit arrows raining down...an amazing visual.
…but isn’t this something you’d expect to see in a sword and sorcery film and not a Western?
Ah, The William Tell Overture. Just in time for the rousing climax.
Final analysis: far better than I thought it would be, but ran twenty minutes too long.
Gorgeous Western vistas and solid performances all around from the diverse cast.
I don’t know how Verbinski roped Tom Wilkinson into doing this project, but I’m glad for the veteran actor’s presence here.
Probably didn’t score with audiences as well as expected because it was billed as being funnier than it is.
And adding Depp to the cast certainly validated such expectations.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars. A solid effort, but will the LR ride again in a sequel?
Wow, I thought old Tonto would’ve fainted in the scorching desert by now!
Other than the above observations, it’s hard to say where this Walt Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer production went wrong. Perhaps it was a matter of timing or viewer interest in the subject itself—Westerns haven’t dominated at the box office for quite some time. Hammer doesn’t have the drawing power that Depp does, but Depp’s presence, by itself, should’ve ensured blockbuster status for this film. The movie’s soft-core action scenes and comedy-lite screenplay most likely added to the movie’s malaise and mediocre box office. Either way, Depp probably won’t be applying the face mud again any time soon. And considering what it’s composed of, that might not be such a bad thing.