Last updated on March 11, 2014
The Lone Ranger – Barring any prolonged discussion about Johnny Depp reinvigorating Indian stereotypes in films (yes, we know your great-great grandmother was Apache or something) or the strange historical inaccuracies (railroads in Texas during 1869? Definitely not!), the Lone Ranger still manages to present one of the strangest blockbuster movies of recent memory. American critics hated it with a passion far too heated for such a low simmering movie, and the budget far exceeds anything that actually comes the viewer’s eyeballs. Honestly, it’s quirky enough in both style and pacing that, barring the heritage of big-budget Western bombs, it felt like no surprise to see The Lone Ranger’s ultimate failure.
But does this mean it’s a bad film? Not in my estimation. Rather, I see it as a different take on the action-adventure formula made famous by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio in the more recent Zorro and Pirates of the Caribbean series, They write exciting films with double crosses, weird tonal shifts from comedy to drama and then back again, and a seeming billion subplots that sometimes go somewhere (but often feel self-indulgent). That they fit this all within two and half hours will either exhaust your audience (as proved with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and our titular subject) or function as both crowd-pleaser and intelligent plotline. In sum, they make “acquired taste” films that actually improve over several viewings.
That, in a nutshell, constitutes The Lone Ranger’s biggest problem – it highlights the worst excesses of their style. At one moment, bombastic action happens all over the screen for fifteen minute stretches of time – it doesn’t often keep the tension alive. Dialogue and exposition scenes between the two leads last for strange, inordinant lengths of time that halt the narrative’s momentum to a lurching halt (also, cannibal rabbits?). In The Lone Ranger, every scene tends to fall into an either/or, rather than contributing to both plot and action.
Man, am I tired of the origin story from every Marvel film ever released in the past decade. Like those origin stories, The Lone Ranger equally suffers from a need to establish the universe while also telling its own tale. Audience fatigue with a familiar set-up might also contribute to that lingering feeling of boredom. The framing device of an older Tonto retelling his story also bounces the audience around at the strangest times! Also, the vague sentiment of anti-Americanism (a certain kind of “America”, most likely corporate) probably turned a lot of people off during its release in July, of all months. That explains the relatively positive international reception! Whether you make something of the hypocrisy in a studio spending nearly four hundred million dollars crafting such a tale remains to your personal inclinations.
Given that, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. Certainly the premise sounds a heck of a lot more interesting that giant robots pummeling each other for the same length of the time with no narrative at all. The characters have (gasp!) stories and motivations that you can understand and relate. It delves into humor not just for levity, but also with a cynical biting edge to the myth of manifest destiny. When the action scenes hold actual weight, they work wonderfully, especially the train sequence at the end blaring the William Tell Overture forever (man, it’s really, really great). Even with all the pacing problems, The Lone Ranger works more often than not at being entertaining.
I do the film a disservice by comparing it to Pirates, though; that assumes it should adhere to the same pacing and methods. The two leads ensure that doesn’t happen. I first saw Armie Hammer play a young Billy Graham, so color me surprised when he popped up on screen as the Lone Ranger himself. He plays the straight arrow to Johnny Depp’s outcast Indian with an appropriate level of moral fortitude and confusion. Depp plays his traditional “I am a weird character” role, but it hearkens back to physical acting (Buster Keaton) rather than constant drunken dialogue (Jack Sparrow, natch). Yes, the broken English and animistic witticisms may not capture your fancy, but I certainly laughed. The host of character actors that also appear (Tom Wilkinson for the win!) made me quite happy indeed. Also, a horse wearing hats! That’s gotta count for something.
If there’s one element that surprised me, there’s a strange undercurrent of “is something spiritual happening in this film?” I mean this in the sense of native spirits. Honestly, the writers make it very unclear whether Tonto actually communes with mystical animals or not. Does he just interpret the world in a different way, or does he actually experience visions? The ambiguity on this note makes the character much more interesting than similar characters. In Pirates, for example, we pretty much know that supernatural things will happen, with skeleton and/or sea creature pirate captains appearing everywhere. The Lone Ranger isn’t so sure of its place on the “supernatural forces” scale, and I like that sense that something may/may not be a little off-kilter in this universe. They don’t much explain the appearance of Silver, at least.
So, in sum: The Lone Ranger is one of the strangest, most overstuffed, full of ideas movie I’ve seen in a long time. It has obvious problems, but its flaws were, for some reason, highly exaggerated by critics and the press. What did they hate so much? Reading all the reviews, I tried to figure out what they hated so much (other than development problems and a huge budget). I couldn’t understand all the negative press for a film that brought me a lot of enjoyment. Heck, when Transformers: Dark of the Moon somehow does better in critical circles, then something’s terribly wrong with this industry. The Lone Ranger has so much more creativity and interesting parts than that giant clunker (I say that lovingly).
I’m not saying The Lone Ranger doesn’t have problems; I am saying it’s worth a watch. Or maybe I just enjoy insane things. Please someone explain to me how horrible this is by comparison.
