Runtime: 2 hours, 29 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Gore Verbinski
Quick Impressions:
My four-year-old was so excited to see this movie. Since we just went to Despicable Me 2 on Wednesday, the rest of us were feeling less motivated to run down to the local multiplex than usual. But her excited cry of “Oh! Lone Ranger! Yes!” was pretty much the deciding vote. Shortened swim, longer-than-average-movie, and quick late dinner it is!
Unfortunately, once the lights went down, her disappointment level rose faster than a…oh, I don’t know…a runaway train? (Why does the image of a runaway train keep popping into my head this evening?) As we walked out of the theater, she complained bluntly, “That movie wasn’t like the preview. It had a different entrance than I expected. I wanted it to be about the Lone Ranger, but it kept showing that dumb guy.”
A brief interrogation in the car revealed that—you guessed it—she thought “the guy with the crow on his head” was the Lone Ranger. Well, of course she did! Johnny Depp is showcased in all the previews and only his name appears above the title. (Of course, in his defense, it would be difficult to convince executives to release a blockbuster called Tonto’s Revenge: Featuring That Dumb Guy.)
Honestly, I’ve been very excited to see The Lone Ranger, too. I’ve been following the movie from the beginning, curious because it seems to be such a passion project for Johnny Depp who has said many times how much he wants to make a Lone Ranger that respects Native American culture and presents Tonto as a co-protagonist and hero rather than a stereotypical sidekick. Depp has brought me so much entertainment over the years that I’m more than willing to pay attention when he’s basically yelling, “Hey look at this! Here’s something that I really want to show you.” I mean, when you’ve reached that lonely apex of both owning your own an island and making a live-action Disney franchise successful, you can pretty much do whatever you want. And I think there are worse things to want than to show children that in the Old West there was nothing so savage as “civilization” (as defined by robber-barons of European descent with delusions of Manifest Destiny.)
The Lone Ranger is not perfect, but I didn’t walk out of the theater as disappointed as my daughter. I mean, the first half hour is a train wreck (no really!), but once the movie finds its legs (be they ivory or otherwise) it’s reasonably entertaining and immensely thought provoking. Intellectually, I loved it. I’m so glad I went, and I think people complaining about Johnny Depp’s take on Comanche culture are not being very kind (for a start). Depp’s not a historian. He’s an actor. (He’s also richer than Croesus, so it’s not like he’s trying to capitalize on people’s misery. He’s going out of his way to try to make kids today love Tonto as much as he does.) This film has a whole slew of problems, but if you say the biggest problem is that it’s not being sympathetic enough to the Comanches, then you’d better be a member of the Comanche tribe with a personal stake and a very nuanced critique of where the film fails based on your own experiences and the research you have done of the era. Because otherwise, I am going to assume that you’re just being a jerk because it seems like the coolest way to proceed. As a filmgoer, I would much rather watch somebody pour his heart into something that’s less than perfect than watch a project that’s by-the-numbers but has no soul.
Don’t go expecting the whimsy of Pirates of the Caribbean. Apparently none of the filmmakers involved had strong feelings about the historical reality of piracy and how it’s portrayed to young children. But The Lone Ranger is definitely meant to teach kids a lesson. Too bad many won’t be able to stay awake long enough to learn it. But maybe like my daughter they will wake up to enjoy the rousing action sequence set to the well-known William Tell Overture theme that The Lone Ranger offers up as an exhilarating grand finale.
The Good:
My favorite thing about this movie is how effectively it demonstrates that we need to look at things from another’s point of view before we can understand the limitations of our own view and move forward making any kind of true progress.
At the beginning of the film, John Reid (Armie Hammer) sees the whole world through the lens of John Locke. This makes him out of step with everybody else (the Presbyterians on the train, the might-makes-right crowd in town), but he doesn’t care. He’s on a train that’s not going anywhere. Then he meets Tonto, puts on a mask, and changes his view.
Tonto’s interpretation of reality is so compelling, and despite Johnny Depp’s repeated insistences that he wanted to make a film with a Native American hero, I honestly did not expect The Lone Ranger to present us with such a thoroughly enchanting reality. I love the film’s magical elements—the mystified origin of the mask, the idea that nature is out of balance, the fact that the movie first presents the whole Wendigo thing as an acceptable reality.
Of course, later we learn that Tonto’s view of reality is just as personalized and distorted as anyone else’s—but by then John has already seen the world through Tonto’s eyes. The idea that two people may perceive a shared reality entirely differently is not something that most children think about. But this movie obviously wants them to.
Everyone is processing the events unfolding around them from some sort of perspective. If you believe that nature is out of balance, for example, you will see evidence of that (either supporting or refuting it) everywhere. If you can learn to see things from another person’s perspective, then perhaps you will see an entirely different story right in front of you than you ever dreamed of finding there. As John learns from Tonto, if one lens isn’t showing you anything, try another. Clearly as a culture, our perspective of our own past has changed as we’ve allowed more voices to tell the story of our nation’s history. I’m sure my great-grandparents didn’t think European settlers were treating the Native Americans unfairly. (Well, maybe one of them did since my dad is 1/16th Cherokee.) But the story has been there the entire time. Mainstream American culture just hasn’t noticed it until recently.
And speaking of progress, Movie Texas is getting closer to Actual Texas all the time. Back in John Wayne’s day, Texas used to be in Arizona, but now it’s in New Mexico or Utah. Another thing I liked about the movie was the way it made me want to leave real Texas for a couple of weeks to visit “Texas” and possibly Disneyland.
Other strengths of The Lone Ranger are the cinematography in the non-action scenes (some of the action feels a little claustrophobic by comparison), the costumes and make-up, and Hans Zimmer’s score (though it pales in comparison to Rossini’s iconic contribution).
The cast is also pretty marvelous.
I liked Armie Hammer in The Social Network and loved him in J. Edgar. I think he looks very good in the Lone Ranger outfit and does his best to bring what’s needed to the character. (The script doesn’t help him out much there.)
I’m really beginning to love James Badge Dale. While he’s not as electrifying here as he was in his very brief supporting role as the cancer patient in Flight, he’s a very strong and charismatic Dan Reid. The script makes the character seem initially a bit mysterious, but Dale counteracts this by giving such a sympathetic performance that it’s hard not to agree with Tonto in his initial assessment of the two brothers.
Helena Bonham Carter is quite good in her part, too. I realize that’s it’s become almost a joke to see her in movies with Johnny Depp, but she always gives a good performance, and if the pair of them go on to make ten thousand films together, I’ll probably see them all.
And my husband commented that Ruth Wilson (Rebecca Reid) is the only actress he’s ever seen with lips so similar to those of Myka (Joanne Kelly) on Warehouse 13. I’m pretty sure that’s a compliment, so I’ll pass it along.
Probably (no definitely) my favorite performance in this film was William Fitchtner’s turn as Butch Cavendish. He was just so thoroughly convincing and also really looked the part with perfect costuming and make-up that never felt distracting.
Oh, also…
Got a young train enthusiast at home? Run. Take him (or her) to this movie right now. You will never find a better film for a kid with a train obsession than The Lone Ranger. Of course, once you’ve shown your children this movie, there’s a good chance that they will never agree to travel by train. That’s a pretty good way to end up careening to your death as this movie clearly shows us over and over and over again. Seriously if you have ever encountered more runaway trains in a short span than they show in this movie, then you must live in a Soul Asylum video.
But I’m not complaining. Some runaway train scenes are definitely better than others, but they all point to something that I absolutely love about this film—its decadent (borderline insane) indulgence in over-the-top (often visual) symbolism. Watching, we’ve got to feel that all the elements in the story really belong there because they all seem weirdly interconnected.
Take Cole (played by my beloved since Michael Clayton Tom Wilkinson). He’s a railroad man living in the Gilded Age, and—as you may or may not pick up from a rushed and subtle conversation designed to go over the heads of children and keep the film family friendly—ever since the war, he’s been something that sounds very like the Age in which he lives. And so of course he’s obsessed with the railroad, building the biggest, fastest trains that take us to the future. Not only that, but wait until you see what he wants to put on the trains!
Because it’s trying to avoid an R rating, the film neatly avoids showing us things and telling us things at the same time. But if you’re able to put what’s shown and what’s told together, you come up with a reality that’s practically NC-17. As my husband pointed out, in terms of artistic success, this movie probably would have fared better if it had ventured into the grittier territory the storyline suggested (and I don’t mean Oklahoma). I think he’s right, but I also think Johnny Depp specifically wanted kids to see this. (Plus, the Pirates team basically reassembled to make it, and Disney’s idea of an R-rated movie is Pretty Woman. They’re really not the right studio to make the excellent, taut, dark R-rated Western that’s hidden within the glitzy PG-13 gristle of The Lone Ranger.) On the plus side, though, the movie is, in turns, constantly either showing us or telling us something meaningful. Aside from the first half hour (which has its own problems), there’s nothing in The Lone Ranger that doesn’t belong there. But we’re shown all of these important elements in such an unorthodox way. To keep it clean for families, the movie tries to conceal everything it needs to reveal. Kids may be confused at times. Adults may feel like they’re watching performance art.
Best Scene:
No contest here. The scene set to The Lone Ranger theme at the end of the movie is the best part of the entire thing by far. In fact, Rossini’s music is so stirring that it makes the scene seem better than it probably is. Hyper-realism and cartoonish exaggeration definitely rule the moment. (In reality, nobody would assume that a woman could be thrown from a train and land on a horse with no practice or awareness of the horse, and the ladder stuff is unlikely at the least. Also, where did John’s total confidence in his new role as hero come from?) Basically much of the scene makes very little sense, but the music covers that up almost completely. It’s a breath-taking delight to watch and action wise much, much better than all that’s come before.
Another highly compelling scene is the version of Tonto’s backstory told by Chief Big Bear.
Best Scene Visually:
One moment in particular caught my eye, the shot when we see Butch Cavendish standing in front of the mine entrance. Its framed beautifully, showing off the grandeur of the setting, the perfection of his costume/make-up, the quality of the camera, and the skill of the person operating it. In general, I think Cavendish is one of the most convincing things about the production anyway.
Two other resonant moments also stand out. One is so brief. Tonto is sneaking around. We hear The Star Spangled Banner. We see the feet of the soldiers, and Tonto’s corvine headpiece moving along between and beneath their feet. It’s like a little reminder that in the name of patriotism, the not-always-Americans trampled the Native Americans.
Another such heavy-handed moment comes in a late, brief exchange between Fuller (Barry Pepper) and Saginaw Grant (whose performance as Chief Big Bear I really enjoyed).
Funniest Scene/Best Action Sequence:
The carnivalesque quality of the brothel is pretty fun, and the escape at the end of the scene is exciting (though my favorite moment is a dramatic one that comes when Tonto makes Red understand what’s really happening. Helena Bonham Carter is brilliant there, electrifying).
Another standout combining action and humor is John’s much-better-than-intended first shot.
The Negatives:
This has got to be the strangest and least captivating frame story I have ever seen. Well, I’m sure that’s a lie. Let me revise. This frame does not seem tonally suited to a Jerry Bruckheimer production.
It’s cool that the movie begins in 1933 (like the radio show), but I mean…What?!
The frame is at best awkward, at worst creepy. My daughter was pretty outraged. She paid to see The Lone Ranger not some weird kid talking to a frightening, wizened museum exhibit. To me it was like a cross between Something Wicked This Way Comes, Night at the Museum, a high-brow art exhibit (like the kind that might star Tilda Swinton), and the little known gem The Day Charlie Chaplin Walked Off into the Desert and Faded Away into an Ill-Used Memory. (Seriously, what is with that hat?)
I’m sorry but the frame just doesn’t work. The best that can be said of it is that it’s extremely depressing. It’s so weird that it’s distracting, and it raises all kinds of horrible questions that must have sad answers. I mean, maybe if there were two characters in the exhibit…or…something.
I mean, I think I get the implication. Kids are supposed to leave this having major respect for Tonto and wanting to be the Lone Ranger (aka Tonto’s sidekick). But instead, you just feel vaguely depressed and oddly thirsty by the time all is said and done.
Actually, there were two things I liked about the frame. 1) The kid’s reaction at the end. (Good acting there, Mason Elston Cook, unless of course you weren’t acting and were just freaked out by the whole affair.) 2) What Tonto trades with one of the men in his grave (because then you’re forced to ask yourself, unreliable narrator or more-reliable-than-average mystical narrator?).
Also, as delightful as I find the trains on a symbolic level, unless you are a train enthusiast, the endless train sequences get a little fatiguing. In general, I thought a lot of the action scenes were somehow both prolonged and underwhelming, and I think the first scene on the train doesn’t work at all (at least not on a first viewing). The movie acts like this is a Pirates sequel and that everybody knows the characters. But kids today know absolutely nothing about The Lone Ranger. And nobody (not even adults like me who remember The Lone Ranger) knows the characters of Tonto and John as they are presented in this film. So the first scene basically falls a little flat because we don’t exactly understand what we’re seeing, and we don’t particularly sympathize with any of the characters (other than feeling like, Ooh! Look! It’s Johnny Depp! Let’s watch him!) They did need to tell us who John was and how he felt about the world, but I promise you, they could have achieved that the old fashioned way, like John Wayne would have done—with an uncomfortable conversation and perhaps a brief bit of (no CGI necessary) conflict. The worst part is, the scene is basically there to introduce the characters and almost completely fails to do that. At the end of that trainwreck, we know only superficial things about John and next to nothing about Tonto. It’s just really a pretty weak opening all around.
Once you get past the pretty unappealing first thirty-to-forty-five minutes, the movie does pick up. And as John and Tonto get to know each other more and more, it becomes increasingly enjoyable. But it still feels pulled in too many directions, like maybe there were complications in development and they couldn’t decide which way to go. At one point, I was sure we were going to hear about how John Reid accidentally killed his father by making a mistake in a gunfight (or something like that), but we never really get his backstory, just Tonto’s. And although I liked Tonto’s backstory (and appreciate that the distancing may have come about after conversations with Comanche tribe representatives), the fact that the other Comanches basically discredit Tonto calls the reality the film has shown us to that point into question and makes everything hopelessly confusing.
Sometimes too, it feels like we are getting too many morals, and they don’t all go together. Don’t kill. But you should kill bad guys. But it’s wrong to take justice into your own hands. But there’s no justice otherwise. Be a real man. But don’t be the wrong kind of man. Don’t harm people who harm you. But make sure they die ironically. And those creepy rabbits—okay, I liked them the first time because they took me by surprise. And my family loves reading the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series and other folklore collections, so we know all about the Wendigo, but is Tonto’s worldview real or just real to him (or is that the question about world view in general)? And how does his narration actually work, how does the frame work? Are we seeing the story he’s telling the boy, or are we coincidentally seeing a story as he happens to also be telling something similar to the boy?
The movie just seems to be pulled in too many different directions. The tonal shifts are unsettling, and the focus on Tonto makes the Lone Ranger character seem unimportant and the whole story seem very depressing (because if you’re talking about the story of the United States and its perfect track record with Native American treaties—i.e. breaking them all—then that is pretty much a depressing, demoralizing story). In the end, watching that last walk-off into the desert is like going to a museum but without the certainty that what you’re seeing is a reasonably accurate depiction of the past. (I guess you’re not assured of that at a museum either.)
Oh and by the way, now that I’m writing this review, I can’t seem to get the rap from the end of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie out of my head. “We need heroes like the Lone Ranger, when Tonto came pronto when there was danger. They didn’t say they’d be there in half an hour because they displayed turtle power.” I suppose I can’t really blame Johnny Depp for that one, though.
Overall:
Despite its flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed The Lone Ranger. It’s worth seeing for the end credits alone, not because what happens there is anything entertaining, but because the scene is so memorably odd that I’m sure having it floating around somewhere in my brain increases my odds of winning at Jeopardy! one day in the future.
The movie starts slow and falters occasionally, but it has a compelling cast, some beautiful scenes, a pleasant score, and a highly entertaining final showdown set to the William
Tell Overture that everyone alive on Earth should see at least once because it’s so giddily exhilarating.
If the only thing you love more than runaway trains is more runaway trains, then buy a ticket now for The Lone Ranger. Trust me.