For all its miscalculations, this is a personal picture, violent and sweet, clever and goofy. It's as obsessive and overbearing as Steven Spielberg's "1941" — and, I'll bet, as likely to be re-evaluated twenty years from now, and described as "misunderstood."
It's all too much and not enough—a succession of disparate, can-you-top-this episodes inelegantly piling up like skidding cars on a freeway. And that's not even taking into account the action scenes. Lord, those action scenes: Monotonous, loud and relentless, they're a punishing example of the self-satisfied, digitally augmented ephemera that typifies modern Hollywood moviemaking, and House Bruckheimer in particular.
It represents 2 1/2 of the longest hours on record, a jumbled botch that is so confused in its purpose and so charmless in its effect that it must be seen to be believed, but better yet, no. Don't see it, don't believe it, not unless a case of restless leg syndrome sounds like a fun time at the movies.
..........................................................................................................................................................Very good Written Very Good Acting and Direction
To be fair without the slow start and with better pacing this would be a better movie. For clarification: There are awesome scenes and a lot works well but you have to wait too long for the highlights. Much feels stretched or is uninteresting and some scenes don't work. Lets start with an introduction. The Lone Ranger is a really old fictional hero. He was created in the 1930s for a radio play and became more famous with TV show adaptations. The idea was based of transferring a hero like Zorro into the wild west. Many say he is based on real live Bass Reeves who was the first black (deputy) Marshal west of the Mississippi and a legend. He arrested more than 3000 criminals (That is no typo!), was non corruptible as he even arrested his own son when he committed a serious crime and was a master of disguise, master shooter, spoke many languages and was a skilled tactician as he did outsmarting his opponents easily. There should be a picture of him in the dictionary under bad ass. Back to the review. This is the introduction movie for the hero which tells the story how the unspectacular John Reid becomes the Lone Ranger. It starts in the 1869 when the lawyer John Reid comes home to Texas by train. With him on the train are native American Tonto and a dangerous criminal named Butch Cavendish who is actually on his last journey as he will be hanged. However this is easier said than done and will be the start of the adventure and there is more to it than it seems. The story is actually not that bad. I can see it working quite well if it was ironed out. I always make the following argument here: Can you summarize the story in a way it sounds good and interesting for another person? If yes then it is good but has weaknesses in the execution. Like I said it takes far to long to get momentum and some scenes are uninteresting. However it has its moments and I liked the climax. The humor is also good but sometimes poorly separated from the serious moments. There is one scene in particular were Tonto’s loss repeats itself and when it starts working they make a (horse) joke that took me out of the immersion and cheapened the build up to this. In better movies neither the humor nor serious moments harm the other. For the characters I say it is good. Armie Hammer is actually not bad as John Reid aka the Lone Ranger. The script weakens his character and makes him less enjoyable. With Johnny Depp as Tonto they wanted to recreate a Captain Jack Sparrow feeling. While he makes a great performance it failed in that regard but does not cheapen his achievements. James Badage Dale as Dan Reid is more hero material than his brother and even the characters in the movie address it. Shorter screentime but good performance. William Fitchner as Butch Cavendish is remarkable and works well as does his gang. The other villain I wont spoil is also exactly what you want from a bad guy. Special credit to Saginaw Grand as chief Big Bear. For the rest we got a solid performance. Sadly it cant turn the tide completely. Visually this movie looked really good by western genre standards. The costumes, sets, weapons and shoot outs were excellent. The Oscar nominations for the make up and visual effects were rightfully deserved. I see no missteps here and was sometimes impressed by the efforts. The soundtrack has a lot of good ideas. They use the final of William Tells overture by Rossini (You know this track but not by name ;-), Poor Paddy on the Railway is a classic Irish song and I also like the tracks Absurdity, For God and Country and Reds Theater of Absurd. A good soundtrack but I would really liked to know what Ennio Morricone would have done here ;-). Overall this is a good movie hidden behind a weaker script. I see this as something that could have worked far better. Because of the good stuff I still give a 6/10.
The Lone Ranger is an ok movie. It's got a very basic plot, some really good acting from The Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) and Tonto (Johnny Depp) there's only a few little odd scenes where Johnny Depp feels out of character.
The dialogue can feel quite forced from the side characters at scenes and the same goes with the main characters.
The cinematography from Bojan Bazelli is alright. He does a pretty decent job on capturing certain scenes pretty well in my opinion.
Also, the action sequences are pretty unique and clever for the most part, I really enjoyed the action sequences where they're fighting on the train, all of those ones were honestly class in my opinion.
There's a few funny moments throughout this movie, which made me laugh quite a bit.
I think the problems, I've got with this movie would have to be how many **** characters it tries to throw in, it feels quite bloated with characters.
You start to forget about most of the villains who are still in this movie because my god, you start to forget about them quite quickly.
Another problem I've got with this movie would have to be, how some of the scenes have been put together.
There's a certain scene which I noticed, where it feels like something's been cut out or they've shot some scenes before those certain ones.
Overall, The Lone Ranger isn't that bad of a movie, it's got a few problems here and there but the brilliant acting from Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer save the movie quite a bit. The same goes for the action sequences, the action sequences are very unique and very clever and they're very enjoyable.
All I want to say is the horse who played Silver was the best part of this entire movie and he had more acting skills than the two main leads. Lifeless. An insulting and racist portrayal of Native American, Tonto, by Johnny Deep. The action was fine.
Production Company
Walt Disney Pictures,
Jerry Bruckheimer Films,
Blind Wink Productions,
Infinitum Nihil,
Classic Media,
Silver Bullet Productions (II)