Based on the iconic I.P. of the same name, western/action The Lone Ranger is distributed by Disney. Not long after moving to the Old West, lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer) and a group of Texas Rangers are attacked by outlaw Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) and his gang. The sole survivor of the attack, Reid is found and aided by Native American Tonto (Johnny Depp). Determined to protect the Old West, Reid becomes the Lone Ranger and teams up with Tonto to bring Cavendish and his gang to justice, but what they do not realise is just how many powerful men are corrupt and working with the gang.
CONS
- Director Gore Verbinski has a very muddled vision as he frequently tries to implement horrific imagery (particularly that involving scorpions), but also goes for slapstick stunts of the Buster Keaton ilk (which would be way more impressive and nerve-wracking had they not been shot in front of a green screen), and helms the action scenes in a highly frenetic and convoluted manner that often makes it hard to consistently follow what is going on.
- An overly-long screenplay that really is padded out to nearly 2.5 hours and a number of scenes being far longer than necessary. As with Gore Verbinski’s direction, the screenplay is tonally muddled and highly unfocused, lacking a balance between action, comedy and the more horrific moments, whilst the characters are altogether very one-note and are given dialogue that is sorely lacking in naturalistic qualities.
- The fact that the events in the Old West are recounted 64 years later by Tonto to a kid (Mason Cook) result in the narrative becoming increasingly disjointed, and all this framing device does is provide a totally unnecessary extra 15 minutes to the runtime.
- A unanimously poor cast with wooden turns from Armie Hammer and Ruth Wilson, an exaggerated villainous turn from William Fichtner, and Tom Wilkinson, Helena Bonham Carter and Barry Pepper all being visibly uninvested in the material. And then of course there is the major elephant in the saloon that is Johnny Depp’s casting as Tonto.
- The visual effects are a mixture of CGI and practical, and in both cases the effects department are very heavy-handed indeed, resulting in what could have been visually spectacular scenes being garish and sloppy, the latter being exacerbated by the highly frenetic direction of the action scenes.
- The fact that Gore Verbinski clearly had a much more horrific vision than Disney were willing to allow is made even more apparent by the film’s highly dour visual aesthetic. Most of it is lowly-lit and with very subdued colours, even those exterior scene shot in broad daylight, and it is often so dark that it could easily be in black-and-white (and actually would probably look better were it a black-and-white film).
PROS
- Despite the dour aesthetic, the production and costume design departments put bags of detail into their work, in so doing providing undeniable period authenticity.
VERDICT: 1/10
Pete Kirkpatrick's Reviews 