The Lone Ranger - quick review (1 Viewer)

I'll be brief: It's overly-long and indulgent, and I didn't really like the chemistry between Hammer and Depp as the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Hammer plays LR rather weakly, probably not the right actor for the role. Depp does his odd take on Tonto, I was tepid toward his choices.

i give it 2 stars, or a grade of C.

I thought the last 30 minutes were pretty damn good thanks to a sense of fun & zaniness that is sorely lacking from nearly all summer movies now (even the ones that I like). Unfortunately, you have to sit through 2 hours of average to bad material to get to that last 30 minutes.

I liked the last half hour of the film as well, that's when it really started to become The Lone Ranger. I don't know why but I was very perturbed by Tonto's response when the Lone Ranger says, "Hi yo, Silver, Away!" There was no need to put in a stupid joke at that point. That line has been a part of the Lone Ranger since he first started on radio in 1933. Why did they have to demean that line by Tonto saying, "Don't you ever say that again. Never!" It left a bad taste in my mouth and reminded me on how miserable the first part of the movie is. If they would have left that line alone and then rolled the credits, I would have given it three stars but now I'll give it a weak two stars. Did anyone else feel like Tonto's retort was a cheap shot to the long-term Lone Ranger fans?

Greg Chenoweth said:

Did anyone else feel like Tonto's retort was a cheap shot to the long-term Lone Ranger fans?

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More than anything else, I thought it was dumb. The movie had embraced its roots at this point so turn around and dump on the signature line was pointless.

The film literally, LITERALLY, dragged the character through horse feces, which sums up their approach. Lots of great character actors, tonally all jacked up, with very skillful direction from Verbinski. I'd love him to get a worthwhile script.Hated it. Combining five pounds of crap and two pounds of ice cream results in seven pounds of...

Greg Chenoweth said:

I liked the last half hour of the film as well, that's when it really started to become The Lone Ranger. I don't know why but I was very perturbed by Tonto's response when the Lone Ranger says, "Hi yo, Silver, Away!" There was no need to put in a stupid joke at that point. That line has been a part of the Lone Ranger since he first started on radio in 1933. Why did they have to demean that line by Tonto saying, "Don't you ever say that again. Never!" It left a bad taste in my mouth and reminded me on how miserable the first part of the movie is. If they would have left that line alone and then rolled the credits, I would have given it three stars but now I'll give it a weak two stars. Did anyone else feel like Tonto's retort was a cheap shot to the long-term Lone Ranger fans?

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Yes: They literally didn't KNOW whether they were playing the Ranger for pop-cultural reverence or pop-culture camp (since "everybody had grown up seeing it on TV", unquote), and wanted to keep all their card hands safe.
Hence the flashback opening, for those who want to think it's reverent or poking at a "corny old 50's Western".
And it's the schizophrenia ("Sure it's, like, your grandparents' old, but we'll make it really BIG this time, with lotsa CGI 'n stuff, so it'll be okay!") that the entire production seems to be suffering from.

Greg Chenoweth said:

I liked the last half hour of the film as well, that's when it really started to become The Lone Ranger. I don't know why but I was very perturbed by Tonto's response when the Lone Ranger says, "Hi yo, Silver, Away!" There was no need to put in a stupid joke at that point. That line has been a part of the Lone Ranger since he first started on radio in 1933. Why did they have to demean that line by Tonto saying, "Don't you ever say that again. Never!" It left a bad taste in my mouth and reminded me on how miserable the first part of the movie is. If they would have left that line alone and then rolled the credits, I would have given it three stars but now I'll give it a weak two stars. Did anyone else feel like Tonto's retort was a cheap shot to the long-term Lone Ranger fans?

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What a pathetic way to treat the character.

I haven't seen the film yet, but from what I gather based on the everyone's review so far, this film may be worse than the 1981 version.

Is it safe to assume that the Klinton Spilsbury version is superior? Or are we stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of both Lone Ranger films.

The 1981 film at least tried to have respect for the characters as to where this 2013 movie is camped up to the hilt. The Lone Ranger is a hero; he is not a buffoon. I am going to put on a DVD of the classic Clayton Moore series and watch it. The big problem is that the Lone Ranger does not come to the big screen as often as Batman or Superman do. They come out with a film once every thirty years and this is the atrocity that we get. I understand there was a made-for-TV movie that was a pilot for a potential new Lone Ranger series for The CW but it was not picked up. I have not seen that movie, so I'm curious if it is any good or not.

Corey II said:

I haven't seen the film yet, but from what I gather based on the everyone's review so far, this film may be worse than the 1981 version.

Is it safe to assume that the Klinton Spilsbury version is superior? Or are we stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of both Lone Ranger films.

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I know that the 1981 movie is not a classic. yes.. it is better then the new one.
the problem with the new movie is that they make lone ranger into a prick. the worse unlikable character since anakin skywalker in episode 2. depp will survive this.. but I dont know about the guy playing the lone ranger.

Jacob

Also haven't seen and low interest. But a friend commented that 'Hi ho Silver' was done better in Dr Horrible than this film. That's kind of sad because that's the iconic moment

Greg Chenoweth said:

The 1981 film at least tried to have respect for the characters as to where this 2013 movie is camped up to the hilt. The Lone Ranger is a hero; he is not a buffoon.

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Critics panned the 1981 movie as "Wagnerian", and yes, it is--EVERYTHING is dragged out to desert-crawl length with Epic Western solemnity, and audiences giggled at Merle Haggard's "balladeer" narration.
But think we can agree, at this point...we'll TAKE serious. It's an improvement over bet-hedging self-conscious condescension/quirkiness trying to market back its budget and franchise other previous films.

Plus, you've got sweeping John Barry scores over long, long shots of Western scenery, Michael Horse playing a proactive-PC Tonto, and Christopher Lloyd playing Cavendish as a black-cape baddie bent on national treason, by kidnapping dogged Jason Robards as Ulysses S. Grant. (And it's hard to tell just how bad an actor Spilsbury is, since all his dialogue ended up re-dubbed by James Keach.)

When you come right down to it, pretty much the only director who has totally succeeded in making a big budget update of this type classic material is Richard Donner with Superman. Even when he kidded it a little, he respected the original (the phone booth reference is a hoot!).

Rick Thompson said:

When you come right down to it, pretty much the only director who has totally succeeded in making a big budget update of this type classic material is Richard Donner with Superman. Even when he kidded it a little, he respected the original (the phone booth reference is a hoot!).

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Besides Donner, Christopher Nolan accomplished the same thing with BATMAN BEGINS, THE DARK KNIGHT & THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. He did a great job with the Batman mythos and Warner Brothers made a ton of money off of it. I would also give a tip of the hat to both SPIDER-MAN series because they came out really good as well. It is possible to do these films and have the hero be a hero.

Rick Thompson said:

When you come right down to it, pretty much the only director who has totally succeeded in making a big budget update of this type classic material is Richard Donner with Superman. Even when he kidded it a little, he respected the original (the phone booth reference is a hoot!).

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I'd add Burton's two Batman films. The other two were terrible, & I never cared for the Nolan versions.

Chuck Mayer said:

Lots of great character actors, tonally all jacked up, with very skillful direction from Verbinski. I'd love him to get a worthwhile script.

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Therein lies the major problem with these bloated films of established names. It takes a good script to get a good film! When will Hollywood learn this?! Like last year's miserable Dark Shadows, it takes a lot more than a familiar title, a great cast, good director and tons of money and CGI thrown at the screen. They could have saved 1/3 of the budget and by simply having a better script, people would have come out this weekend. Instead, they started in the hole with a cypher of a script, threw money at it and ended up with a big loss. I love Depp, but I'm getting very disillusioned in his projects. Either his "picker" is losing its effectiveness, or he's just agreeing to anything that meets his salary demands now. Either way, it's sad.

JohnMor said:

I love Depp, but I'm getting very disillusioned in his projects. Either his "picker" is losing its effectiveness, or he's just agreeing to anything that meets his salary demands now. Either way, it's sad.

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Not like I know the guy or his motives but I think he did both movies because he enjoys working with Burton and Verbinski and just hoped/assumed that things would work out better than they did.

Johnny Depp is also a producer on both DARK SHADOWS and THE LONE RANGER. Depp bought the movie rights to DS and it was always his dream to play Barnabas Collins. He also has a stake in TLR and he was one of the driving forces behind the big budget. He is three years younger than I am and he grew up with these properties just like I did. I don't know why he is so determined to twist them into an ill-conceived mess that has no resemblance to the TV shows they are based on, but he has just as much to blame for these atrocities as anyone.

Greg Chenoweth said:

Johnny Depp is also a producer on both DARK SHADOWS and THE LONE RANGER. Depp bought the movie rights to DS and it was always his dream to play Barnabas Collins. He also has a stake in TLR and he was one of the driving forces behind the big budget. He is three years younger than I am and he grew up with these properties just like I did. I don't know why he is so determined to twist them into an ill-conceived mess that has no resemblance to the TV shows they are based on, but he has just as much to blame for these atrocities as anyone.

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I have no doubt Depp wanted to play the Barnabas Collins he grew up with, or a "respectful" Tonto, it's just the company his desire for "Quirkiness" started keeping--What happened in either case wasn't really his fault, although he didn't (or, at that salary range, couldn't) do much to stop it, and with part of his money in the production, he couldn't demand his name off the credits without a good reason or a lot of bad press.
There were some early teaser posters showing Depp as a very classic 60's-Hammerish Collins, but that wasn't the movie Tim Burton set out to make: Burton had been trying to get the rights to his stop-motion version of The Addams Family, and when rights on that one disappeared, all of a sudden appeared the Dark Shadows poster of the Collinses striking Chas. Addams' "My Family" pose. Hmm.

As for TLR, the minute Disney announced "We've got Bruckheimer and the Pirates crew doing the Lone Ranger!" the casting announced itself. For a while people wondered whether Tim Burton would doing it just because Depp was in it, but no, we had to have the Pirates director do it, because, well, that's what it just IS!
And in both cases, that's what it was: A movie convinced it was something it was not.

Greg Chenoweth said:

Johnny Depp is also a producer on both DARK SHADOWS and THE LONE RANGER. Depp bought the movie rights to DS and it was always his dream to play Barnabas Collins. He also has a stake in TLR and he was one of the driving forces behind the big budget. He is three years younger than I am and he grew up with these properties just like I did. I don't know why he is so determined to twist them into an ill-conceived mess that has no resemblance to the TV shows they are based on, but he has just as much to blame for these atrocities as anyone.

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I agree. And I totally understand wanting to film both of these properties. I grew up on them and loved them, too.

What I don't understand is settling for such horrible scripts. It's totally fine to add Burton/Depp quirkiness to Dark Shadows. That's not what ruined it. It was a LOUSY script and (IMO) pedestrian execution. It totally struck me as if everyone phoned it in for a paycheck, knowing the script wasn't up to par. It started out okay, but quickly fell apart. It reeks of everyone and his brother (i.e. the suits) meddling with it. They can't just have a simple, good story and quality dialogue and let good acting, directing and a few quality effects hit it out of the park. No, they have to add in ridiculous effects and about three or four climaxes, instead of one really good one.

Quirky is fine. Boring or incomprehensible or all-over-the-place are NOT okay.
Haven't seen, The Lone Ranger yet, so I'm just going by reviews and comments here. Sad, as I was hoping it might be of the quality of the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. (I hated all the sequels; see above re: boring and all-over-the-place.)