Chad Michael Murray just didn't have the screen presence to really pull this off. He just isn't very believable in the role and frankly, the Lone Ranger is a man to be feared and respected... Chad Michael Murray might be a teen heart throb but is not somebody that is the least bit intimidating. I thought that Nathaniel Arcand's rendition of Tonto was interesting, he does have more screen presence than Chad Michael Murray although he was a little heavy on the angst to be a very likeable character. If this ever becomes a series then hopefully he will tone it down a few notches. The brief romance angle between Tonto's sister and Luke Hartman was okay, the bath scene and explicit sexual overtones may have been a little over the top though as younger kids should be able to watch a show like this. I did like the mystical elements introduced, it adds an interesting angle to the character although the silly power-jumping stuff reminded me of an old show called Manimal for some odd reason.
The background elements of the plot were loosely based on the established story... you know the one that has been established from the books, comics, TV show, and movies for 60 or so years. The writers apparently thought they could do better and decided to make changes that really didn't need to be made. I am not sure why they changed his name to Luke Hartman from Dan Reid.. again, a fact that has been established for over 60 years. I wonder if the copyright holder insisted that these name changes be made so that this is some type of "parallel-universe" version of the Lone Ranger and not the real thing. The overall design of the sets were good, whoever did the technical advising for the movie did a pretty good job. The hip hop music was P*A*I*N*F*U*L... in fact, most of the music was extremely inappropriate and instead of making the scenes hip, they made them awkward and confused. They did give a half-hearted nod to the real Lone Ranger by playing the William Tell Overture at the end and although the rendition was pretty good, the cinematics should have been better... it just looked silly, this skinny guy riding along with this giant Indian guy riding next to him... just who is the sidekick here anyway?
The Lone Ranger's costume was pretty lousy, bearing zero continuity to the actual character and much more like a reject from the Village people. I know they are trying to make him look hip and cool but in doing so have made the character very undistinctive, average, and boring. Gone were all the trademarks elements that are part of the character. It seems to me that when you take a character as well known as the Lone Ranger, you should at least get people to make the film that have some granual of respect for the character itself and include at least some of the elements that make the character as enduring as it has been. When you change as much as these people have then you have a totally different product... this was not the Lone Ranger but rather a cheap knockoff masquerading as the Lone Ranger.
Overall, the movie reminded me of Sony's Godzilla remake.. and is once again proof positive that completely re-inventing a classic icon is foolish and stupid because you automatically alienate any real fan base out there. Most males over the age of 30 probably grew up watching the real Lone Ranger on TV or listening to Radio shows when they were kids. I was hoping for a semi-mature effort from WB but instead we ended up with their usual, predictable attempt to lure in the young, hip crowd with a product that is cliche' and an insult to anybody that knows anything about the character. If this is going to be a series (ugh) , the only hope will be to grow this lame character into more of what it is traditionally suppose to be and introduce those elements that make the Lone Ranger special, but then again it seems some people feel that anything that rebels against tradition is the right thing to do.. how sad. The only redeeming value of this movie is that it made the 1981 flop "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" movie look much better. It was universally disliked because most people felt it strayed too far from the original but after watching it again and comparing it to this lame duck, it is about 100 times better than I remember it. If this ever becomes a series could it be saved? yes, but will it be saved? Probably not and that's a shame.
