The Lone Ranger

2013 box office bust

Rating: 17/20 (Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: An origin story about the famous Western masked outlaw and how he forms a bond with his white horse and faithful companion Tonto.

When I was a little kid, I went to a car dealership to meet the titular hero of the television show that I somehow enjoyed in reruns. I must have been about five or six, not quite street-smart enough to realize that seeing a hero at a car dealership in Terre Haute, Indiana, was almost guaranteed to be a letdown. This was around the same time I saw Darth Vader and a Jawa at a Great Scott grocery store and wondered what Darth Vader was doing hanging around with Jawas. Anyway, the Lone Ranger actor was wearing his powder blue suit and the white hat. And sunglasses. That's right--I saw the Lone Ranger in a car dealership wearing a pair of sunglasses instead of his customary mask. They could try to explain copyright laws all they wanted; I was not going to understand what the hell was going on. Just imagine my disappointment.

I figured this Disney movie incarnation of the antihero for squares would be at least as disappointing as that experience and fully expected to lampoon the thing here. The reviews were not favorable, and the Lego sets went on sale pretty quickly after the movie was released. And Johnny Depp, another white dude in a long history of white dudes to play Native American characters, had some kind of dead bird on his head. A crow? A raven? I can tell those two birds apart about as well as I can tell alligators and crocodiles apart which, as a loyal reader, you know is something that gives me a lot of trouble. I hadn't seen any positive publicity for this movie except for its inclusion in Quentin Tarantino's favorite-movies-of-2013 list which, since he completed the thing in October, might not have been all that reliable. I decided that it was probably the Quentin Tarantino who made Death Proof.

Boy howdy, was I wrong. This is an arguably too-long 2 1/2 hours, but I wasn't bored at all and even got goose pimples at the exact moment that Gore Verbinski and Gioachino Rossini wanted me to. And I probably don't have to tell you that I felt like a complete sucker at that moment, the William Tell Overture finale kicking off some of the most improbable movie action, the third action sequence in the movie that had to do with trains, that I am likely to see this year. I'll even go as far as saying that none of the action scenes in this fit in with anything that science would tell you is logical, but things definitely get progressively more difficult to believe as this movie goes. The train scenes are part-Keaton action slapstick hijinks and part-Bruckheimer-produced action fare, the latter making perfect sense since this is actually produced by Bruckheimer. It's the kind of action that would be ludicrous in a science fiction movie or a cartoon. In a Western, even a non-traditional Western with a West that is more wacky than wild, it's downright preposterous. And if I have to fault this movie for anything at all, it's going to be the CGI which doesn't even come close to nailing anything resembling realism as people are being thrown from trains or horses are bounding from rooftops. Artists can do a lot with computer effects, but apparently they cannot handle buffaloes or flailing quite yet.

But special effects and the amount of money spent on a movie--an outrageous amount according to what I've read--can't make a movie great, so why should I allow them to make a movie terrible? I can forgive The Lone Ranger for its flaws in realism because it almost fits the gummy message in this movie. See, I think I've figured out what Tarantino liked about this movie. The Lone Ranger, especially in making Depp's Tonto the main character despite the movie not being called Tonto, is really exploring a lot of the same ideas about revisionist history, storytelling, and movie hero-building that Tarantino explored with Inglourious Basterds. And that's why it makes sense that Johnny Depp--a French white man--is playing a Native American character. No, I don't fully understand what this movie's really about or even know what is real and what's only real to delusional elderly Native American with the weight of generations of oppression on his mind, but the ways this is all handled--Tonto's unreliable narration, San Francisco, 1933, the year the Lone Ranger made his first radio appearance; a popcorn bag; an endless return to Monument Valley, apparently in West Texas, or a fleeing from something that occurs during the credits. It all adds layers to what appears to be a fairly dumb action Western on the surface, and it's really pretty brilliant.

But how is it as a dumb action Western? If Gore Verbinski is involved with a project, you can predict that it's going to be visually interesting if not spectacular. The camera moves through Wild West dusty towns, desert landscapes, and train aisles in surprising ways, and there's a liveliness to the whole thing that keeps your eyes glued to the screen. Hans Zimmer's score is just about perfect, even when it's predictable. And as I said, the take on the William Tell Overture finale just about made me pee down my leg. The characters are interesting--the two leads the most interesting they've ever been--and the actors do a great job of creating them. Armie Hammer--the dumbest name in Hollywood--is a handsome devil and stays out of his own way here, unfortunately lacking a powder blue suit but looking fantastic in a white hat. Depp, who if you think about it sort of plays the same character over and over with slight variations, plays the same character he always plays with slight variations. As you'd expect, his comic timing is perfect, and he shows off a mastery of physical comedy. William Fichtner is nearly unrecognizable as the baddest baddie, the type of guy who is capable of making his own guys puke. Tom Wilkinson's Latham Cole adds some dignity to the proceedings, necessary since Helena Bonham Carter plays a whore with an ivory machine gun leg. And authentic Native American Saginaw Grant is great in a small role. Everybody else adds color to the Wild West sets enhanced with Verbinski's visual flare. The action and faux-historical storyline recalls Raiders of the Lost Ark, those pirate movies (perhaps obviously), and Little Big Man, and there's a body count that seems pretty high for Mickey although you don't get enough blood for an R rating or to make Tarantino giggle. It's vibrant stuff, and it's also very funny. References to a "fairly sinister jar of pickles," the line "He was gonna violate me with a duck foot," Tonto's feeding his bird hat, the rapport between the two leads. Very funny stuff and immensely entertaining, easily the most surprised I've been by a movie in a really long time.