When I was a kid I used to watch some of the older 1940's series of The Lone Ranger. Now I have not seen that series in quite sometime so I really don't remember too much from it. So in this review I will not be able to compare it to the original TV series or the original films. When this new film finally came to theaters this was one of those rare moments when I let my guard down and did not have any interest to see it due to what people were saying about it. After finally being able to view it I see where some people were coming from, but I also think this would of been a blast to of seen on the big screen. Now lets dive into this autopsy!
Mild mannered John Reid (Armie hammer) comes back to his home town to join up with his brother to be a ranger. After his brother is killed in and he is wounded in an ambush he is helped out by oddball Indian Tonto (Johnny Depp). He then straps on the mask and becomes the Lone Ranger and must team up with Tonto to get revenge on those who killed his brother and nearly killed him. The two must learn to work together before their showdown with those who are guilty comes to fruition.
After getting through this 2 hr and 29 minute epic adventure I was quite satisfied with what I had seen. Now that is not to say it didn't have it's flaws. The things that I did find to be this films flaws was mainly due to how long it was. I think if they could of cut it down to about 2 hours then it would of worked better. Now I know they do have to setup the Long Ranger and Tonto characters from the start and they need to give some back story so we know their origins and why they are doing what their doing. I thought they did a a good job at setting up both of the characters and cannot wait to see what they do in a hopefully upcoming sequel.
The first thing that I think made this film good was the characters and actors behind them. Armie Hammer who I remember from TV series "Reaper" does a great job at being The Lone Ranger and I like how he went from this overly straight laced ranger to a man hell bent on revenge. He has the most character development in the whole film in my eyes. In an odd way he kinda reminds me of Brendan Fraser. Along the side of him is Tonto which is played by the great Johnny Depp which I constantly see people say he is just playing Jack Sparrow in every role he does now. I can see a little bit of that here, but that is only due to how he plays the character in an odd ball manner. Overall I think Depp did a good and fun version of Tonto.
Now the character to steal the show for me was that of Butch Cavendish which is played by the very talented actor William Fichtner. He honestly steals the scene every time he shows up just like he did in "Drive Angry". You can tell he is having a blast at playing his character and he does such a great job in his role as the villain. The bottomline with him is even if you don't care much for any other character I can bet you will get a kick out of Fichtner in his role. One character I am glad to see that they didn't over use was that of Red Harrington which was played by Helena Bonham Carter. She is a good actress, but I honestly got burnt out on seeing her due to her partner Tim Burton over using her in alot of his films. She was still great in this film nonetheless.
The visuals in this film are top notch and look quite stunning from time to time. Now I of course knew going into the film that there was going to be alot of CGI used and really it did not bother me. It was all really well done and fused in well with the real objects and people. Good thing that CGI has come a ways in the past few years because alot of what they did in this film could of came out looking disastrous if done say 10 years ago. There is only a few times where it did look overly fake and that was with some of the characters being done digitally instead of them hiring a real stuntman to do the stunt. One time I can think of is towards the end of the film and they are on the top of the train and Tonto goes swinging around on this ladder.
Overall this was a pretty fun film and did surpass my expectations. I still do think it is a little too long, but nonetheless that really didn't ruin the film for me because there was still enough action and great characters to make up for the time length. If you are skeptical like I was then I say give it a shot because you may have a fun time watching The Lone Ranger! One thing I will warn those who may let their kids watch it, please keep in mind their are some dark tones and alot of killings in this film, but they keep the blood to a minimal.
I give this film a 4 out of 5 scalpels!
-Daniel "Damnation" Lee
Director: Gore Verbinski
Lead Actor/Actress: Armie Hammer & Johnny Depp
Genre: Action/Adventure/Western
Blu-ray Release Year: 2013
Theatrical Release Year: 2013
Time Length: 2 hrs. 29 mins.
Rating: PG-13
Region Code: Region Free
Release Company: Disney
Website:
www.disney.com
