The Lone Ranger

Heard on radios and seen in books since the 1930s, a masked lawman and his trusty Native American partner ride into people’s television with a famous 1950s show. Disney then got the team behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise with doing for cowboys what they managed with pirates. Now, the famous crime-fighting duo have been tied and dragged into the 21^st century for Gore Verbinski’s “The Lone Ranger,” released in 2013, with Johnny Depp continuing his loud eccentric façade as Tonto. Starring in a 1933 fairground, a boy meets an old Comanche who reminisces his fantastical story.

The story starts over sixty years earlier when upright lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer) ruins Tonto’s attempt to kill the evil bandit Butch Cavendish (William Fitchner) in the prison car of a train headed to Colby, Texas. Ben Nicholson said in his review, “A subsequent assault on said train sees the varmit escape and flea into the wild with his gang. Mirroring the original story, a group of rangers – with John tagging along – set out to apprehend him but the posse is double-crossed and slaughtered in a canyon.” Tonto comes to help John, and the duo unite to hunt Cavendish down, with Reid in disguise behind the famous domino mask.

Nicholson said, “Sadly, what could easily have shaped-up as a gripping adventure yarn has a lot more in common with the bloated and dour At Worlds End (2007) than the swaggering Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). It commits the cardinal sin of any romp – that is to be laborious – with neither the action nor the comedy hitting the requisite marks. The spectacle is overblown and never excites, whilst the humour is largely reserved for Hammer’s fine, but never inspiring, Reid and Depp’s sub-par riff on his own most iconic creation.” Verbinksi’s “The Lone Ranger” also tries to navigate even more evil and serious areas – a bold and interesting decision for a film from Disney – but it never really works.

Nicholson said, “Cavendish, it transpires, is not just a gun-toting bandit but a maniac with a taste for human organs. To extenuate this re-write, Tonto’s story places huge attention on the slaughter of his people, but in such a hundred-mile-an-hour train ride of a movie, it’s never reflected on with anywhere near enough care to really hit the spot. Fervent fans of Depp’s gallery of grotesques may find the film enjoyable enough (though Tonto is no Captain Jack), and there’s plenty of action to numb the mind some, but this is hardly the kick in the keister the western genre has been crying out for.”

Sadly, Disney’s “The Long Ranger” quickly becomes very tiring. The overlong plot lacks any intelligence. The action (besides a train wreck) lacks enjoyment. Finally, the array of characters (including cameos from Helena Bonham Carter and Tom Wilkinson) lack the needed depth or enjoyment. Nicholson ended his review by saying, “At over two-and-half hours long, you may get a lot of bang for your buck, but Verbinski’s mask-adorned caper isn’t half as entertaining as it could have been.”

This has to be one of the most boring westerns out there. I never saw the show because it aired before I was born, but this film is really bad. There is nothing in this movie that people will enjoy. Just avoid seeing this film because you will not like it at all, I assure you that.

Alright, enough of these mediocre films. Tomorrow I will be looking at a very enjoyable film in “Disney Month 2024.”