Review: The Lone Ranger
By Christine Petralia
Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios
July 10, 2013
This revival of The Lone Ranger is one of the worst Disney movies I’ve ever seen. I not only fell asleep, I woke up and fell asleep several times because the movie just dragged on and on.
The film starts in 1933 with a young boy walking through a country fair in San Francisco. He stops in front of what he thinks is a mannequin, but is actually a real native American named Tonto (Johnny Depp). Tonto then tells his stories of his time with lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer), the original Lone Ranger.
We then shift to 1869 where Reid is returning home to visit his brother and Texas ranger Dan Reid (James Badge Dale). On the same train is wanted outlaw Butch Cavendish (William Fitchner) and Tonto. Cavendish gets away, so when Reid returns home, he sets out with his brother and the other Texas rangers to re-capture him. The group is ambushed by Cavendish and all are killed, including Reid. However, according to Tonto, Reid is brought back to life by Silver, a white spirit horse thought to be sacred by the Comanche, Tonto’s tribe. Calling Reid the ‘spirit walker,’ Tonto informs him he must wear a mask so not to reveal that he’s alive to Cavendish. Oh yea, and he can’t be killed in battle.
The pair then set off on a mission to find Cavendish and avenge Reid’s brother’s death. Meanwhile, Dan Reid’s wife, Rebecca (Ruth Wilson), and son Danny (Bryant Prince) are kidnapped by Cavendish. So, now the pair must not only avenge Dan’s death but save his widow and child. And on top of that there’s a bunch of political mumbo jumbo and a disagreement between the town and the Comanche tribe.
After some plotting and a blown-up unfinished train track, what do you think happens? I have to say, it was a lot to follow and a lot of back and forth. And just when you think the good guys win, the bad guys come back. It was a lot to swallow in its 2.5-hour runtime. I would have preferred a brief introduction of who the Lone Ranger is and how he came to be, instead of the almost 45 minute introduction and then the other non-sense of the film.
Honestly, the only parts of the film I enjoyed were with Depp. However, Depp played the same character he usually plays, the silly, almost drunk pirate. It only works because Hammer can’t hold the film.
Skip this one. It’s not worth it.
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