The Lone Ranger

I was surprised to learn that many people deem the 2013 Lone Ranger as 'unsalvageable', and there are a few decent reasons why. The plot is quite convoluted and the gritty tone is a bit off putting, but it's a film that always manages to entertain me.

Armie Hammer does a decent job as the titular character, and he has good chemistry with Johnny Depp's Tonto. Depp might've been an odd choice for the character, and you could argue it's a Jack Sparrow reskin, but he makes Tonto strange and humorous to watch.

One of the film's greatest strengths are the action and the humour. In particular, I really love the climax, which gets my vote for potentially the best train chase in cinema history. Zimmer's score is also great, and very dramatic. The film did go massively over budget, but I think that was a good thing because of just how much of it can be found on screen.

You could cite this as a misguided Pirates of the Caribbean clone, and in some ways there are similarities. But the influences aren't too noticeable, and the film is still a lot of fun. It is something of a shame it never got any sequels, but it stands on its own just fine.

You know the plot; you also know who is in this movie so lets get to it. Gore Verbinski has delivered a film that moves leisurely along peppered with rousing action sequences, comedy, villainy and pathos. It is solid entertainment. I would place this movie alongside Waterworld, The Last Action Hero, and John Carter as unfairly panned films which deserves to succeed in the cinema halls.

It is too bad that there appears to be a hate on for this movie simply because it seems that a lot of money was spent in its making. But look at it this way, when you hire real stunt persons, construct and destroy real trains and stage many stunts for real, it is not going to be cheap. I would rather support this type of movie-making any day instead of the tired CGI based effects laden yawners. Every penny of the budget is on screen in a beautiful shot and staged movie. I found it to be an enjoyable 159 minutes of entertainment.

I was a little disappointed about the critics' review of the movie, since I adore Johnny Depp and had been waiting for the movie to release for months. I was pleasantly surprised. The movie was lovely. It had action (as promised), a good plot and pretty generous doses of humor for a movie of this genre. Depp stole the show with his portrayal of Tonto, but the other actors were great as well. The obvious comparison of this movie is with the Pirates of the Caribbean series because of Verbinski and Depp. There were parts of the movie, especially those where Tonto's actions generated laughs from the theater, which reminded me of the latter. Both have Depp in eccentric roles which provide ample comic relief. But since the themes are completely different, I feel that a comparison is not exactly fair. All in all, it is a good, lighthearted, entertaining way to spend two and a half hours, and I am considering hitting the theater for it again soon.

I saw a screening of this last night with a friend and to be honest I wasn't expecting much. From the previews I had seen, I wasn't going to spend money on this. So Time Warner offers me two free tickets, I invite a friend and we go and watch this. I was presently surprised after watching this. I remember some of the Lone Ranger comics and remember seeing small clips and my dad telling me stories about it but I never actually saw a show. I enjoyed this movie, it reminded me of fun action with the family. The violence wasn't ridiculous where you couldn't bring children to watch it but authentic enough to know not to try it at home. I saw in an interview that Armie did all the stunts and you can tell. His work on making the character honorable, noble and pretty much a decent human being was very well portrayed. Johnny Depp steals the show with his one liners, a few times I just started laughing at the comments he would make. Overall i'd give this movie an 8/10. Well written, excellent character development, you actually care for them and a great job with the actors and the acting. What I really enjoyed about the movie was that the special effects didn't look too fake. Yeah a few scenes you may have been like yeah right in your head but unlike Fast and the Furious 6, the special effects people on this project do a great job keeping it looking realistic. Bring your family to watch this, a great story of an iconic character. Hopefully this is the start to more because I wouldn't mind watching a sequel or two.

The early signs were not good, tales of production problems galore and early critical notices wading in to kick the film before it had even had a run at the theatres. The Lone Ranger seemed destined to be a blockbuster stinker. Yet in spite of it noticeably alienating original Lone Ranger purists, and some Western lovers as well, for a rollicking action fun packed time then Gore Verbinski's movie delivers in spades.

It's awash with the serial silliness of adventure films and TV shows of yore, pitching good guys against bad guys with buddy buddy shenanigans pulsing away at the core. The stunts are outrageously enjoyable, the landscape photography as beautiful as it is respectful in homage to past masters of the Western genre, while in Depp's Tonto there's a bona fide hero to root for just as much as he makes you laugh out loud.

This is an origin story, a tale of how John Reid (Armie Hammer) became The Lone Ranger, and of course how the noble steed Silver and Indian side-kick Tonto became integral to his villain fighting ways. Tom Wilkinson and William Fitchner file in for polar opposite villain duties, the former is the weasel business man trying to mould the West in is own image, the latter a repugnant psychopath with a penchant for eating human hearts! Then Helena Bonham Carter wanders in from some Grindhouse movie for a couple of cameos that are resplendent with sexual energy.

It's all very wacky and wild, and rightly so, but this is not at the expense of very good story telling. Some parts of the narrative could have been trimmed, but as the bromance builds between our two heroes, and Silver gets up to all sorts of comedy horse escapades, there's nary a dull moment here. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Verbinski throw all the action staples into the pot. Chases, fights, swinging from ropes, shoot-outs, people dangling from speeding train (pic is bookended by awesome train sequences), grisly deaths and on it goes from start to end.

There's caustic asides to the machinations of organisations of the time, from railroad magnates to the cavalry, while the catchphrases and legends of The Lone Ranger TV series are deftly inserted into the tale. It was interesting to see Depp come out and defend the movie against those damning early critic reviews, it's not something he does, being as he is very much a guy who sees acting as just a job. Bruckheimer, Hammer and Verbinski backed Depp up, stating that some reviews were written before the film had even been released, the big budget and production problems clearly making this a big stinker…

Not so, it's certainly not flawless, and those seriously into anachronisms are likely to have kittens. But if you haven't seen it yet, if you was put off by the venomous early reviews, then give it a chance, you may just be surprised at just how entertaining it is. It also looks and sounds brilliant on Blu-ray, where repeat viewings even show Hammer to be better than first thought as that masked man. 8.5/10