Bring up The Lone Ranger and many people think of an old black and white television show with a masked cowboy and sidekick Tonto. This show never really got into the origin of this partnership or the origin of the man in the mask. In this film, Armie Hammer plays The Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp portrays Tonto to tell the story of how The Lone Ranger came into existence. It is a story about justice, greed, and of course some old fashioned cowboys and indians.
Picture and Sound:
The picture and sound for The Lone Ranger looked fantastic. As I prepared to review this movie, I was actually concerned that things would look too digital and unrealistic. Thankfully, this just didn’t happen. The effects were well done and I needn’t have worried about them. The sound was done pretty well. There weren’t any outstanding moments that blew me away but there weren’t any bad moments either. To me, this means that the sound designers did a good job. I wish I could say the same for the score. It was unmemorable for most of the time and then randomly the original theme from the TV show was thrown in. The only part I didn’t like was the digital rabbits that were quite the stretch for my imagination and a couple of scenes with Silver that seemed too unrealistic to not be digital.
Bonus Features:
Some of the bonus features were actually pretty interesting for The Lone Ranger. I always like it when I get a look at how things are done. That being said, I’m still not a fan of blooper reels and most deleted scenes. The others though were worth watching. Bonus features included:
- Blooper reel
- Deleted Scene
- Riding the Rails of The Lone Ranger – A five mile train track was used for the movie. This takes a look at the process.
- Armie’s Western Road Trip – A look at the locations used for filming the movie.
- Becoming a Cowboy – The cast learns how to act like cowboys.
Final Thoughts:
The Lone Ranger was a tough movie to review. I grew up seeing the tv show and really loved it. I wanted to love this one but I couldn’t. At the very basic level of the story, there was a good concept. However, then they started monkeying with it and adding a bunch of gimmicks. As I continued to watch the film I couldn’t help but wonder if a bunch of middle school boys who loved the original show had been given an unlimited budget and no limits. Then they played at making a movie one scene at a time going “hey, this would be cool!” Some of the elements were cool. Some weren’t. The problem was, it was disjointed and often didn’t help the story move forward. There was a lot of fluff… cool looking fluff… but fluff. The result was a movie that had all the potential in the world, but none of the discipline to make it realize that potential. Because of that, there are no hat-tips for The Lone Ranger. Huge fans of Johnny Depp might want to check it out because there are some good moments in this movie. Otherwise, go and buy Mary Poppins instead.
