Today’s quick review: The Lone Ranger. While on the hunt for the notorious criminal Butch Cavendish (William Fitchner), John Reid (Armie Hammer) and his brother are ambushed, shot, and left for dead. Thanks to the timely intervention of Tonto (Johnny Depp), an eccentric Comanche hunter, John survives the ordeal. At Tonto’s insistence, Reid dons a mask to conceal his identity and sets out to bring his brother’s killer to justice.
The Lone Ranger is a Western action comedy with a touch of ambiguous mysticism. The Lone Ranger reimagines the classic TV series as a daring, quirky adventure. At its best, The Lone Ranger is an imaginative, visually spectacular, and amusing experience. At its worst, the movie is a bastardization of a classic that is missing the special flourish needed to bring its strange vision together.
The Lone Ranger does a few things very well. The movie delivers a surprising variety of action for a Western, supplementing the usual shootouts and horse chases with a creative train chases and plenty of chaos. Johnny Depp makes for a fascinating Tonto: a superstitious, resourceful, and troubled man with only a passing interest in John Reid. The humor laced throughout the movie is enough to give it an offbeat charm.
However, The Lone Ranger is marred by gambles that don’t pay off. The movie’s framing device, an aged Tonto recounting his adventures to a young boy, adds little to the film. The tone is inconsistent, bouncing between high-stakes peril and kid-friendly adventure. The movie is ambivalent to its source material and alternates between celebrating and mocking the conventions of the original show.
The Lone Ranger invites comparison to Pirates of the Caribbean, with which it shares its director, writers, and lead actor. The Lone Ranger follows the same pattern of swashbuckling action, wry humor, and quirky characters as the Pirates films, but it is missing their coherence of vision. In spite of the film’s technical competence, the pieces of the puzzle don’t fit together as well as they could have.
Still, The Lone Ranger makes for an entertaining watch for the right type of viewer. The ideal viewer should enjoy freewheeling action and unconventional takes on established genres, as well as be willing to forgive a few missteps along the way. Those who are looking for a clean hit, a traditional Western, or a straight adaptation of the source material should skip it.
6.5 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 7.0 to 7.5 for impressive action, fairly good humor, and personal appeal; your score will vary depending on how its style catches you.