Brought to you by the team who created Pirates of the Caribbean who wanted so badly to recreate their success with Pirates that they tried to create a near carbon copy concept in the realm of the Wild West. Pirates were fun films. The first one was such a surprise but was really good. The second two were examples of the law of diminishing returns. The story got weirder to build hype but not better. The second movies relied more on special effects to cover up lazy/ mildly incompetent writing. We aren’t here to talk about Pirates. We are here to talk about the Lone Ranger. A film so poorly conceived that if my time was a train, this movie is the Jesse James that robbed me of it. The main character is a moron. Not a cute funny moron like the lovable Kramer from Seinfeld. He is so stupid you kinda hate him. It’s practically criminal, how stupid this guy is. If dumb was a crime…wait…why is dumb not a crime? We live in America!
Depp acts hard. Poor guy tries to hold things together. He doesn’t really bring anything new to this character. He is Johhny Depp. I am rather taken with Depp when he hits the right part. His unusual antics are often refreshing. Here they felt drab…dull…even boring. The comic timing just doesn’t work. Certain spots could be funny if you really, really, really, just forced yourself to laugh and didn’t use 79% of your brain’s function.
The movie could have been a really hard hitting action/drama but the comedy ruined that. Too much silly action, ridiculous scenes with people doing things no one would really ever do, and silly dialogue that swings for the fence but forgets to wait for the pitcher to throw the ball. It’s sad. Action/Drama/Comedy is not an easy trio. You have to pretty well master all three to use them together effectively.
Lone Ranger fails. From start to finish. You don’t really care about the characters. You don’t really laugh because the funny just doesn’t work. The action scenes are sometimes cool but often unnecessarily ridiculous to a point of almost laughable absurdity…which is sadly the funnies part of the film…how bad the action efforts were.
One of the worst movies I have seen this year.
I watched this movie on a plane, which usually adds to the perceived quality because you have a captive audience. However, even on a plane with nothing else to do I found this movie wildly disappointing. I have read reviews of people who thought this movie was great. It was so bad I am having a hard time not questioning their sanity. Nothing in this movie works. Gore Verbinski is dead to me. I am going to check for these writers as well. I am now convinced they are determined to make garbage that looks good in previews out of some conspiracy to steal 2-3 hours of our lives one movie at a time.
I would give the Lone Ranger a GENEROUS 3 out of 10 stars. 1 of those stars is probably a result of watching it on a plane. 1 of those is sentimental because I loved the Lone Ranger as a kid.
Obscurity Lost 