Zzzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzzz. (snort) Huh?!? What?!? Oh, another gunshot/explosion/loud noise due to train crash has erupted from the movie theater speakers because I fell asleep again while attempting to watch director Gore Verbinski’s adaptation of The Lone Ranger. (For all you youngin’s our there, this was a TV series and even a radio serial well before many of you were born.)
Starring Armie Hammer as a bumbling version of the titular hero and Johnny Depp as Tonto, an offensive stereotype of Comanche Indians (I brought a friend made aware of her tribe’s customs by her full-blooded Native American grandmother to verify that aspect), the film lumbers along for two and a half hours for no good reason in particular. And if you thought that bringing the director and star of The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise back together would create the same surprisingly decent result (at least for the first of those films), put that thought away.
The relationship between our “heroes” is poorly scripted and executed, making this a pathetic excuse for a buddy movie. The action is tedious, making this a pathetic excuse for an action-adventure film; and of the multiple occasions I “rested my eyes” during the monotony, one or two of these instances even occurred during an overly long sequence involving ridiculous shenanigans on trains. The story is overly complicated and too many characters are developed to the point of needing more development but getting no such treatment from the script, making this a pathetic excuse for a movie worth your time and/or money.
Also, for all you Tim Burton fans. Have no fear. Although this isn’t made by him, Helena Bonham Carter is needlessly in this movie to make sure Johnny Depp isn’t far from either of them on a film set.
I’m not going to belabor this review. The Lone Ranger is awful. Not okay. Not sort of bad. It’s awful. It chugs along slowly for far too long, given its plot. It tries to double the very recognizable Monument Valley in Utah for some part of Texas (just one of many examples of avoiding reality). And the only interesting characters (played well by William Fichtner and James Badge Dale) are either killed early on or not given enough attention because the film is too busy making us watch the “heroes” fumble along and make a mockery of the source material and Native American culture.
If you have a worst enemy, tell them to go see this. Otherwise, just mosey along. Resurrecting this property as anything other than a credible Western taken seriously by the filmmakers, with a proper screenplay and a star more interested in creating credible cinema than continuing their never-ending attempt to cram a version of Capt. Jack Sparrow into almost every part they’ve played in the last decade, was a bad idea in the first place. Having it end up like this is simply crap.
GRADE: D-
The Lone Ranger opens in theaters on July 3, 2013 and is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence, and some suggestive material.
Grimm, Community, Revolution, Hannibal, and The Blacklist will be representing NBC at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con running July 18th through July 21st. The network’s also bringing Seth Meyers from Late Night with Seth Meyers to the event in downtown San Diego.
