Sunday, July 7, 2013

The Lone Ranger (2013): Review

Today I went and saw the new Johnny Depp movie The Lone Ranger and although Johnny Depp isn't The Longer Ranger this is still a Johnny Depp movie, he gets to dress in an OTT outfit and be ridiculous.  This movie was better then I expected it to be but going in I wasn't thinking it would be very good, so that isn't really saying anything.  Although this was a bad movie, with lots of negative, it was fun at times, and I found myself laughing at some of the moments.  The good thing about it being this type of Disney movie, is that it commits to the camp factor and really just goes for the OTTness. 
I do not like how this movie started out as the main story is told in Flashbacks by on older Tonto, played by Johnny Depp, to a young boy at a wild west fair exhibit.  Throughout the movie, it jumps back to this storytelling. I do not think that this was necessary and seemed like just another chance for Johnny Depp to do his thing, although the little boy who he was telling the story to was adorable.  I would have preferred the story to have gone through the events and have this little boy be the main boy in the story, he was much cuter.  Anyway, although Johnny Depp gets top billing as Tonto, the main story follow John Reid, played by Armie Hammer as he returns to the wild west on the same train as the outlaw Butch Cavendish, played by William Filchner, and Tonto.  Butch escapes and Reid along with his brother the local head Ranger go out to capture him.  This group is ambushed and everyone is killed except for Reid.  Tonto finds him and identifies him as a shadow walker who needs to become The Lone Ranger to seek justice for his brothers death.  Meanwhile there are other shenanigans going on that create more peril then Reid was expecting. 
I was not expecting much when I went into this movie, but it did have the things I like about these types of Disney movies, overall it was beautiful to watch, with bright contrasting collars and cinematography.  At moments the CG was obvious but due to it being in 2D it wasn't that big of a deal, there was lots of OTT moments and lots of gags thrown in for a some giggles.
Overall the casting was good and I liked Hammer as the Lone Ranger, it worked with how he was played as a bit neurotic and awkward and how he is trying to do the right thing when nothing is working out for him. I think that Johnny Depp was too much OTT and I  kept thinking that he was just trying to recreate a bit of Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean) in Tonto.  That being said I did like the moment where The Lone Ranger references the introduction of Captain Jack Sparrow in the movie and I thought that the train sequence was one of the better ones. 
The story was a bit chaotic and predictable but that is what this movie was about.  The thing that surprised me the most was that for a Disney PG-13 movie, there was an awful lot of killing and deaths.  I don't think that many were needed and just seemed out of place for the family movie that this was.
This movie wasn't very good but I enjoyed it, it is more of a rental or watch on TV movie then one worth seeing in the theatre.

My Rating (of the movie itself): 1
My Enjoyment Rating: 2 (for the type of movie it was it was okay and I would recommend if for people who tend to like this type of family movie)

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