The Lone Ranger

HI-YO BOX OFFICE BOMB AWAY

Except I don't really understand why.

Let's back up here.

A little before I went to college I saw a trailer for a movie.  It didn't reveal much except Disney, skulls and crossbones, and the flick would be called Pirates of the Caribbean.  My 17 year old brain immediately dismissed it.  "Based on a ride in the magic kingdom? How can that be any good?"  Lets point out I had never been to Disneyworld so I knew right around jack and shit about the ride.  What can I say? 17 year old me was a prick.  About a year later a college friend was like "Da fuck? You never saw that? Its fucking amazing."  We tried to watch it a few times and never finished, until 1 day with nothing to do (what, like i was going to study?) and possibly a slight hangover I turned it on.

I then received one of my biggest movie surprises ever, in large part due to Johnny Depp doing what he does best: being weird and stealing entire movies.  But it wasn't just him.  Everyone in this movie just seemed like they were having a blast bringing Pirate lore to the big screen.  The flick did so well its inspired 4 sequels (5 is in the works), and honestly? I loved all of them, even the shitty ones.  Its just a good damn time.

So I talked about Pirates in a Lone Ranger review because there's almost no way to separate the two. Practically the same cast and crew was involved and it was still an older Disney property trying to be revived for the twitter generation.  I will say in advance: I know nothing about The Lone Ranger except his nephew's horse is named Victor (A Christmas Story reference), so I'm not going to be comparing to the lore or anything.

Lets start with the good.  Armie Hammer (the kid who played the twins in the social network) and Johnny Depp not only have great chemistry, but work perfectly in their roles as the Ranger and Tonto.  While Depp is certainly emulating bits of his Sparrow performance, I'm never going to complain about that.  The villain is sufficiently creepy as shit.  The Old West scenery is awesome.  The action sequence set to the William Overture is just fucking fantastically absurd.

The bad? The story was stupid.  The scenes not involving Tonto and the Ranger drag.  It takes 2 hours to get to the fun part.

Yet this thing is getting destroyed critically and at the box office. I dont understand why.  Its pure summer blockbuster fare and I've seen much worse (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). This at least had a good cast and was as minimally racist as they could be given the time period.

There's not really much else to say here.  Too long didn't read?  If you have a little patience, this is worth seeing for a great set of leads (with awesome bromantic chemistry), and some fun action sequences.  Why were you expecting more?

HIYO SILVER AWAY!
-Oz