Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger has some moments, and will assuredly achieve some rescue in later years as many box office bombs do. Of course, the rescues later on, rather than being limited to "not as bad as it was made out to be," will likely go overboard with praise. For, in the end, even if you set aside the box office story or the absurd amounts of money spent on an homage to TV westerns, this is still an over-long, over-cooked movie with a dud of a performance in the hero role and wild tonal shifts that suggest two versions of the script fighting with each other for control over the movie's soul. In summary, while it may not be as bad as its reputation, it still isn't good.
The story is wrapped inside the tale of an old Tonto telling the origin story of The Lone Ranger to a little boy in 1930s San Francisco. The Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) is John Reid, a seemingly urbane man who is returning to his hometown (some random town in Texas) from law school. Reid believes that there is a new age dawning in the "Wild West," where law and civilization will rule.
Reid is quickly disabused when he stumbles onto a train raid, where vicious baddie Butch Cavendish is freed. Reid and Tonto run into each other (Tonto is trying to kill Cavendish for reasons disclosed late in the film) and, after a long set-piece train bit, end up losing Cavendish. Reid is rescued by his brother, a rough-hewn lawman that doesn't have much of a need for civilization (or his lonesome wife, who pines for Reid).
Reid and his brother form a posse to go after Cavendish. They all end up shot dead. Tonto stumbles upon them and is surprised to find that Reid is still alive. Eventually, Tonto and Reid - wearing a mask at Tonto's instigation - set out to find Cavendish. They run into numerous complications, ranging from an anxious nearby Indian tribe, to nefarious railroad executives, to an ambitious U.S. Cavalry officer, and finally to Cavendish himself.
It isn't difficult to see where the money went in this thing, although the "why" of it is a little harder to find. Verbinski peppers the movie with long swooshing shots built on a mix of live-action and computer imagery. There's a long sweeping shot of the Golden Gate bridge being built which swoops into a carnival where a little boy goes into a tent to find Tonto. There's a sweeping shot where the camera swings by the mountains before swooshing past a full speed train before settling on John Reid sitting in the train. Each of these shots likely cost millions, and they might serve as catnip for filmmakers more interested in creative camera movements than story. Yet they really have no point here. They just feel done for the sake of being done.
The whole thing has an animated feel to it - not uncommon these days in films that over-lard the frame with computer generated imagery. In a scene or two, it kind of works - such as when Tonto and Reid are sitting by a fire. It gives it a pleasant color and a studio feel to the proceedings, making it feel a bit like a shot from the old TV series (albeit with a much larger budget), But then there are scenes like the one where Reid rides his horse on top of a high-speed moving train, and rather than working it feels like someone just got a little over-excited with the computers. Rather than amping up the excitement, the thing looks dumb and fake.
A lot has been made of Johnny Depp playing Tonto. It's an oddly lifeless performance, perhaps because he was stuck in trying to play Tonto as the racist caricature of old Hollywood TV and movies. Far worse from a cinematic standpoint is Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger. The performance is flat and mild. While the point is to take a weak guy and turn him into a hero, Hammer is not believable at either pole. It is difficult to make an action hero movie work when the two action heroes in the movie are so dull and lifeless.
As for the story itself, it is as convoluted and shaky as one might expect from many a Hollywood mega-production these days. Nevertheless, the film deserves special mention for its wild tonal shifts. It is as if Disney got a hold of an R rated action western script and a development exec asked if they could work in some material from the Apple Dumpling Gang.
One moment the villain is cutting out and eating someone's heart, and the next moment they're telling stale poopie jokes. One moment someone is having their head scalped and the next moment the kids are supposed to be laughing at the horse getting drunk. One moment it is a silly chase movie and the next moment an entire Indian tribe is being massacred. One moment we're told Tonto's horrifying back-story and the next moment we're supposed to chuckle at Tonto and Reid being stuck in the sand. Setting aside whether this movie is suitable for small children, just on a basic story level this tonal whip-saw makes the movie hard to settle into.
There are some good action moments (the climactic train chase works solidly with the exception of the horse on the roof), but the film is a classic example of a Hollywood movie where a coherent story, plausibility, and actors' performances all seem to have taken a backseat to the money being thrown at the computers.
Screened on Blu-ray.
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