The University Daily Kansan
Monday, July 8, 2013
Page 15
MOVIES
--earnest, silver bullets at the ready.
'Lone Ranger' saddled with too much ambition
Who was that masked man?
And why doesn't anyone seem to care?
Gore Verbinski's madcap actionwestern "The Lone Ranger" resurrects a pair of outdated American icons (the eponymous Ranger and his monosyllabic Comanche companion Tonto) and surrounds them with solid performances, bold historical revisionism and a locomotive-powered finale that pays ecstatic tribute to Buster Keaton's silent classic "The General." So why has Verbinski and star Johnny Depp's latest collaboration been scalped by critics and shunned by audiences, many of whom opted to catch "Despicable Me 2" instead last weekend?
On paper, at least, Verbinski's revival seemed like a surefire hit, especially coming on the heels of the director's gloriously offbeat animated oater "Rango." After the brutal slaying of his Texas Ranger brother by notorious outlaw Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner), pacifist lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer) assumes the mantle of the Lone Ranger and, with the help of Tonto (a chalky, mystically addled Depp), roams the Wild West dispensing wholesome, square-jawed justice (the kind today's angst-ridden heroes don't usually have time for). Along the way, the Ranger matches wits with a greedy railroad baron (Tom Wilkinson) and charms a one-legged bordello mistress (Helena Bonham
Carter). Sounds like all the ingredients for an easy-bake blockbuster, right?
To explain what led "The Lone Ranger" into a box office ambush, I would point to three factors in particular: the average viewer's lack of familiarity with the 80-year-old main character, a gargantuan budget - reportedly more than $250 million
- and the movie's daunting 149-minute runtime.
By attempting to imitate the epic sweep and scope of their "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, Verbinski and his team of screenwriters have transformed what should have been a fast-paced adventure story into a rattler's nest of convoluted storylines and extraneous characters. The tone is almost comically haphazard, an absurdist cocktail that references cannibalism, horse manure and the genocide of the American Indian all in the same unsteady breath.
Yet in spite of these and other flaws, the majority of the film's ragi- and-bone eccentricities are enough to qualify "The Lone Ranger" as the most endearingly excessive release of the summer. It may be a drain on the senses and a "John Carter"-level financial disaster for Disney and mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, but it's never once boring. And I would defy any true blue western fan not to break out in goosebumps once the William Tell Overture kicks in and Hammer's Ranger saddles up in
The standout performance of the movie undoubtedly belongs to William Fichtner, an underrated actor whose presence elevates everything from bargain-bin schlock ("Drive Angry 3-D") to prestigious blockbusters ("The Dark Knight"). Nearly unrecognizable behind layers of dirt, grime and an artificial cleft lip, his mangy cannibal gunslinger is a villain whose sinister appearance and ghoulish tendencies (he likes to cut out his enemy's hearts and eat them raw) add a nasty edge to the PG-13 proceedings (he's like a refugee from an unfilmed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian").
Walt Disney Pictures
Hammer, who first turned heads playing both Winnicklevoss twins in 2010's "The Social Network," turns in a sunny, gallant performance as the
Ranger, while Depp, who receives top billing for obvious reasons, succeeds in making Tonto more than a whooping, war-painted clone of Jack Sparrow, even if his portrayal may strike some as simultaneously more and less than politically correct.
Many cultural commentators were uneasy when Depp took the part, viewing it as a missed opportunity for an American Indian actor to restore dignity to a character long derided as the poster child of native stereotypes. For better or worse, the chameleon actor has instilled the self-proclaimed "last of the Comanche wendigo hunters" with equal parts cavort- and-caper kookiness
(he wears a stuffed raven on his head and insists on feeding it birdseed) and a stoic's sense of frustration, most of it directed at his impulsive white counterpart.
All this rigorously enforced modernization results in a movie where the heroes merely tolerate each other. Imagine a bizarro "Sherlock Holmes" movie where Dr. Watson solves all the cases and constantly admonishes Holmes for his stupidity. I knew the Lone Ranger and Tonto were allies, but this version never once convinced me they were friends.
FINAL RATING