The Lone Ranger

 

There's no denying that Disney's massively budgeted (the film alone reportedly cost $250 million, and that was before publicity and advertising) update of The Lone Ranger is a big mess of a movie.  But, in my eyes, it's an entertaining mess.  Not all of it works, but when it does work, you are watching something truly sensational.  For my money, the film's two big action set pieces (both of them set aboard runaway trains) are worth the price of admission alone.  You can literally see the money up there on the screen with the special effects, stunts, and production design.  I've seen blockbusters that cost more than this, and it didn't even look like it.

It's easy to see what the studio is trying to do with this film.  They want to do for Westerns what Pirates of the Caribbean did for pirate movies.  So, they got one of the former franchise's stars (Johnny Depp), its director Gore Verbinski, and even two of its screenwriters.  However, I'm not sure if this movie will find the same success that Pirates did.  The Lone Ranger is severely schizophrenic in tone, ranging from broad silly humor that makes the movie feel like it's a PG-rated Blazing Saddles at times, to extremely dark and brutal violence (the film's villain is a cannibal who tears out the hearts of his victims, then eats them).  It can sometimes be hard to know who this movie was made for.  And yet, I'm giving it a marginal recommendation, because a lot of the jokes made me laugh, and there's some wonderful action.  Maybe I won't look so fondly back on this film in the future.  But for now, I'm giving it a tepid thumbs up.

What we have here essentially is the origin story of the Lone Ranger, as told by Tonto.  The approach is easy to understand, when you realize Tonto is played by Johnny Depp.  The Lone Ranger may get his name in the title, but Tonto seems to get more screen time, and better one liners.  The movie actually opens in the early 1930s, where an elderly Tonto (who is still played by Depp, unrecognizable under mounds of old age make up) works at a sleazy carnival, and tells his story to a wide-eyed little boy.  We then flashback to the 1860s, where an idealistic young lawyer named John Reid (Armie Hammer) arrives in an old west town to help his Texas Ranger brother uphold the law.  The two go on the trail of an escaped convict named Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner), only to get ambushed by Butch's gang.  John's brother is killed in a surprisingly brutal fashion for a movie bearing the Disney Studio logo, while John himself is left for dead.

The dying John is discovered by Tonto in the middle of the desert, who revives him, and starts him down the path of being a masked hero who will not only seek out his brother's killer, but also promote justice in the largely untamed West.  If that synopsis sounds a bit cut and dry, it's because I'm leaving out the shady railroad tycoon (Tom Wilkinson), the wife of John's brother (Ruth Wilson) and her little boy who are constantly placed in peril, the potential war that's brewing between the settlers and a Native American tribe, a scheme to steal massive amounts of silver, and the brothel madam with a wooden leg, complete with a hidden gun (Helena Bonham Carter).  Even for a movie that runs two and a half hours, that's way too much plot and characters to successfully squeeze in.

That's not to say the movie doesn't make a valiant effort.  Verbinski and his team of screenwriters are constantly juggling plots and characters, and at least manage to hold our attention.  Aside from a slightly dull mid-section where things threaten to slow down to the point of tedium, I was never bored by The Lone Ranger.  In fact, I kind of admired the movie for trying so hard.  This is a handsomely mounted production, with beautiful scenery, breathtaking special effects, and at times a true sense of wonder.  When you see the attention to detail and the effort that went into one of this film's spectacular set pieces (especially the jaw-dropping climax), you really do appreciate the effort.  There are reports that Disney tried to shut this production down early when its budget started to run out of control.  They were probably right to be cautious, but at least you can see every dollar that was thrown into this thing right up there on the screen, and it's quite the spectacle.

Heck, if this movie had been trimmed down to a much more manageable running time of 100 minutes or so, I'd probably be calling this one of the better adventure movies of the modern era.  You can certainly see the potential, it's simply buried underneath a meandering narrative that keeps on losing focus.  Whenever the movie is focused on the relationship between John and Tonto, or one of the amazing action sequences, it left me giddy.  This is a film that's too ambitious for its own good.  But, at least it actually has ambition.  I just can't believe how simple it would have been to make this project truly work.  Just trim out a few of the unnecessary side characters, and the plots and scenes that don't go anywhere, and you'd have a great little adventure movie.  As it stands, it's a lot of good ideas jumbled together with some stuff that just doesn't work.

 

Already The Lone Ranger is taking a beating at the box office, thanks to bad word of mouth.  It certainly deserves some of the criticisms it's got so far, but I just can't bring myself to hate this movie.  For every scene I didn't like, there was usually one coming up that made me happy again.  It's uneven, and it's more than a little sloppy.  But, I'd be lying if I didn't say I had fun with this.  Don't expect the Lone Ranger to ride across the screen again, though.  I have a hard time picturing this movie making back its monster budget, and that's sort of a shame.

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