This turned out to be a mixed bag for us — I really enjoyed it, the Spousal Unit (who grew up loving the tv series) found it baggy, illogical, and aggravating to think about. It is all those things, so if you like tight swift sensible movies, be warned: The Lone Ranger is absolutely not for you.
Much of the professional criticism I’ve read complains about the framing device: In 1933, a boy of 9 or 10, dressed in a Lone Ranger costume, wanders into a carnival exibit about “the Great American Wild West” and meets a diorama “Indian in his native habitat” who claims to be the original Tonto. But the framing is the essential substructure of the movie — the narrative is a tale about a vanished world, told by a very old man to a young boy. Everything we see on the screen is suspended between those two imaginations (just as in the radio dramas of the original Lone Ranger stories).
Once you accept the premise, it’s easy to appreciate the Tale, with all its violations of reportorial narrative. Of course the bad guys are ugly and grimy, while the good guys are handsome and tidy. Of course our heroes can walk away from violent train derailments, mine explosions, and other wide-screen setpieces without more than a photogenic scratch or two that will disappear before the next scene. Of course an impossibly pure-white horse can perform semi-magical acrobatics while appearing and disappearing in ways impossible under the rules of workday physics, and a wandering shaman will have a heavy-duty shovel on hand to carve seven identical and precisely rectangular graves neatly lined up in the middle of a vast wilderness.
The considerable violence is PG-13 bloodless because most American ten-year-olds can enjoy the imagination of vast slaughter (down go the rows of plastic figures!), or of a villian cutting out a human heart and eating it, while entirely lacking the capacity to visualize the real-world physical awfulness of such concepts. The story dawdles through horse-turd jokes and magical totems and “what’s with the mask?” wisecracks and a million miles of stunning wilderness where even the bunnies are carnivorous, because that’s what a ten-year-old boy finds entertaining. It’s oddly gauzy and off-hand about the boring grownup economics that are supposed to propel the plot — what is the Widow Reid raising on that ranch, besides fence stakes? Why would a dozen of the country’s most powerful railrood tycoons travel to a dusty Texas outpost to celebrate yet another encroachment on unpacified territory? On the other hand, great attention is given to the construction-set intricacy of vast gorge-spanning trestle bridges, life-sized-model-railway switches and couplings, and the acquisition of carefully-labelled explosives.
And at the heart of the movie is a vast sadness… and a sizzling anger. An ancient, damaged survivor explains to a child that the PROGRESS being celebrated at this American carnival, the “winning” of the American west, is founded on genocide, broken treaties, Civil War PTSD, and raw psychotic greed. (It’s like the anti-Life Is Beautiful, because America, Fvck Yeah!) A hero who wants to protect the powerless can only do so as an Out-law, because Locke’s rule of law has been perverted into whatever the rich and powerful want it to be. Hopscotching down the generations, the secret to self-preservation: Never take off the mask!
Darkrose
Native Appropriations blog reviews the Lone Ranger.
YellowJournalism
I don’t know…a good movie shouldn’t have to rely on a person being a ten-year-old boy to appreciate it. It should draw out the spirit of that ten-year-old boy because it is a good movie. Now it seems to have done that for you, but unfortunately, not many others. I’m probably going to end up seeing this one, so I’ll be able to see for myself what it does.
Cacti
@Darkrose:
Maybe Depp could have honored native peoples a little more by wearing a Washington Redskins jersey to the premiere.
craigie
Well, it made me laugh, and the whole ending train sequence owed a whole lot to Buster Keaton, but in a good way. I guess I don’t ask for much from my summer blockbusters.
Anne Laurie
@YellowJournalism: For me, it was more about remembering how complicated it can be for a storyteller to transmit information to a ten-year-old boy. (I have brothers 18 months, 38 months, and nine years younger than I am.) They have very selective hearing — you can get quite sophisticated concepts across, but only if you keep in mind that bathroom jokes, explosions, and rules-lawyering are vital elements of their mental landscapes.
I’m not much of a Depp-watcher, but he did an excellent job of conveying an adult’s exasperation-slash-amusement dealing with both the young carnival listener and the yet-to-be “Lone Range” as an overgrown ten-year-old literal rules-lawyer lost in a carnivorous wilderness (not the desert, but the self-styled ‘civilization’ of manifest destiny via mass slaughter and resources theft).
kdaug
Your last paragraph reminded me of Titus.
Villago Delenda Est
Anne, your final paragraph reveals why the mainstream critics don’t care for it…it challenges the 1% view of the world, and they are in the 1%, they toady to the 1%, or they aspire to the 1%.
It’s too bad Ebert has passed beyond, his take on it would have been interesting.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Anne Laurie: The only real thing I can say about the movie is that I have seen the trailers and have no interest in seeing it at all. I’m not any sort of movie snob, but I’ve found that the “tent pole” (as they seem to call them now) movies rarely interest me. The last one of them I actually remember seeing in a theatre was “Independence Day”, and, looking back on it, that movie sucked.
Hal
Helena Bonham Carter is in this film too? Is there some contract that says she has to do every movie Johnny Depp does?
Yatsuno
@The prophet Nostradumbass: The story was kind of interesting, but dear Allah did that dialogue suck.
Darkrose
@Villago Delenda Est: I strongly suspect that Ebert would have agreed that the movie was too long and didn’t know what it was trying to be. That has nothing to do with the 1% and everything to do with it being a bad movie.
I also suspect that Ebert would have called bullshit on 21st century Native blackface.
? Martin
@Hal: She’s married to Tim Burton who Depp is good friends with. Burton/Depp have done 8 films together.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Some bad movies are for me enjoyable in their own way. “Charlie Chan” with Sidney Toler as Chan, the marvelously solarized “Angry Red Planet,” and “She” (1935) are movies I’ve watched more than once. This iteration of TLR is definitely one I won’t be seeing. I prefer not to have my recollections of Johnny Depp in “Dead Man,” “Edward Scissorhands,” and “Crybaby,” overlaid with Johnny Depp with a dead bird on his head and troweled-on makeup impersonating an Indian. I can waste roughly the same amount of time (At home) for free by watching the 1936 serial version of “Flash Gordon.”
NickT
Everything I’ve seen about this movie screams “teabagger history of America”. Not interested, thanks.
Anne Laurie
@NickT: Well, that’s not what Roy Edroso thought:
…. but it’s certainly not a movie I’d insist anyone watch.
NickT
@Anne Laurie:
This might surprise you, but I don’t outsource my judgment of movies to Roy Edroso either.
Shalimar
@NickT: You don’t have to outsource your judgment, but, since actual teabaggers seem to despise the movie, you might want to explain just a little why your total take on this movie you haven’t seen is that you won’t like it because they would.
geg6
No way will I see this movie. No judgment on those who do, but summer movies, by definition, always suck because they are all aimed at ten year-old boys. I am not and have never been a ten year-old boy nor do I actually know any. But I am quite sure that my taste in films does not line up in any way with theirs.
Which reminds me, is there any way to put Pokeyblow into time out? Or is he just the latest iteration of Special Timmeh and we’re stuck with him because of Cole’s terrible taste in art?
Alex S.
A couple of weeks ago, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas predicted the collapse of the movie industry if a couple of supposed blockbusters failed. This is one of them. I guess Pacific Rim will be another. White House down is another one. Let’s see… I’d be happy if the industry moved away from those $200 million movies that appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Friday Jones
I’d heard about the “framing” technique of the film; it reminds me of the technique used in one of my favorite-of-all-time-films, Little Big Man.
Comrade Jake
@Villago Delenda Est: I have read the review of this over at Grantland. I don’t view Bill Simmons’ site as the one percent club, but perhaps I am hopelessly naive.
In any case, I won’t be shelling out $10+ for this pile of shit, thank you very much.
ericblair
@Alex S.:
I guess they mean the movie industry as currently constituted, which is dominated by a few studios and a few megastars that rake in millions, obsessed with the dealmaking and financing side of the business, and running the technical part of the industry like slave labor.
Oh yeah, Despicable Me 2 was a lot better sequel than I thought it would be. Can’t get enough Minions.
Arnold
Sounds pretty good, I’m much more interested in checking this one out now.
Brian R.
You should tell that to the three families who left with their bawling children after that scene when I saw the film. I’m sure they’d appreciate your judgment.
woozywinks
My favorite guilty pleasure of the summer is “White House Down.” Immensely enjoyable. Jamie Foxx in a funny Obama impersonation beats down a right wing conspiracy. The dad from 6 Feet Under is also great as serious person the Villagers would all love (moderate Republican speaker of the house).
The blockbuster is implausible in the ways all blockbusters are implausible. It’s been amusing to read critics attack it on this basis because a lot of the movie really rings true for our times. The action hero can’t get hired for Secret Service because of a poor credit rating, among other reasons. The whole conspiracy makes you think of the Koch Brothers and plots to overthrow FDR too.
Two thumbs up!
waratah
I am wondering if I was the only ten year old girl watching TLR TV series?
I am looking forward to seeing the movie.
rdldot
@Friday Jones: That’s what I thought when Anne Laurie describes the framing. And I also loved Little Big Man – it’s just a great fantasy history film.
Maude
@ericblair:
Despicable Me 2 came in first at the weekend box office. It outdid Lone Ranger.
Mark S.
@Alex S.:
I saw that last week, but I don’t think Lucas and Spielberg are right. Just my two cents:
1. Every year there are a bunch of movies that bomb but I can’t remember the last time a major studio went bankrupt.
2. We don’t usually pay attention to foreign box office, which generally accounts for 50-70% of total sales.
3. I once read years ago about all the tax loopholes studios use to save money.
I don’t think the studios are going to change how they do business for a while, so get ready for tons of reboots! Batman Begins Again, anybody?
Pogonip
What was the explanation for Tonto wearing a bird on his head? Was he keeping it handy in case he needed to send an express raven to King’s Landing?
A Lone Ranger that frightens kids? Major snafu.
Another Halocene Human
https://soundcloud.com/rmcomedy/ryan-mcmahon-gets-angry-4
Fuck white guilt, you don’t get to misappropriate other cultures to make some melancholy nostalgic “point” about “the price of progress”.
Fuck, it’s no different than that racist “end of the trail” sculpture so beloved by NON-Native Oklahomans.
Another Halocene Human
@Mark S.: Same here. They seem to be Teflon. However, these popular comic book properties are interesting in that some of them have international appeal and others seem to be a US-only thing. Captain America was horribly toned down* but nobody overseas wanted to see it in the first place. Really awful example of not thinking that shit through. The Superman bomb movie also did pretty well in the US, almost nothing overseas, putting it badly in the hole.
*-moviemakers used to blame the South for racefail, now it’s that persnickety overseas audience.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
Seems like the kind of movie that would make me want to pull the Strange Brew moth trick.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Independence Day was a lot more interesting when the humans lost (e.g. Battlestar Galactica).
Gaffa
@Villago Delenda Est: Speaking as a professional movie reviewer, what the hell kinda world do you live in where the movie reviewers are in the top 1%?
Outside of breakaway superstars (Siskel, Ebert) and the people holding down the reviewing jobs for major broadcasting gigs, movie reviewing by and large is pretty low on the totem pole for journalism, which isn’t exactly a well-paying gig outside of the big outlets again to begin with. Hell, even Siskel started his career wanting to cover sports.
Most reviewers you read in newspapers are either people who don’t particularly care about or know anything of movies who got assigned the beat just because nobody else could be arsed to take it (which sucks for everyone, because the readers are getting horribly-written reviews and the reporter is stuck in a beat they hate), or movie lovers willingly taking a pay hit to do something they love.
Amir Khalid
I have just come back from seeing The Lone Ranger. I would have really enjoyed it, if not for
(a) the ten-minute delay about half an hour in, due to a digital projector glitch, and
(b) the woman sitting behind me, who apparently thought she was in her own living room; she kept chatting merrily with her friends and giggling at inappropriate moments.
(End of rant.)
About the movie itself, it’s a tall tale of the West, and it’s well aware of that. I was struck by how it reminded me at times of Rango, and not just because of the Verbinski/Depp connection. It begins with Depp’s character in a glass box making up stories to amuse himself. It ends with his character disappearing, as it were, into the story.
I think the story’s factual absurdities are intentional, part of Verbinski’s commentary on a genre of fiction that traded heavily in absurdities (as well as racist stereotypes), and still does. Casting Depp as Tonto doesn’t seem that far wrong to me; it’s a lot less absurd than, say, Baz Luhrmann casting Amitabh Bachchan as Meyer Wolfshiem. I came away from The Lone Ranger believing there was more to it than met the eye.
different-church-lady
Oh dear, sounds like another one of those movies scuttled by over-indulgence in the conceit of the production design.
Mnemosyne
@Another Halocene Human:
You mean Superman Returns? It made $200 million domestically and $191 million overseas, which ain’t bad at all these days. If you mean the more recent Man of Steel, it’s already done better overseas than Superman Returns — $315 million overseas vs. $271 million domestically.
It used to be that a US film making 40 percent of its money overseas did phenomenally well; now it’s pretty standard for 50 percent or more to be made overseas. Hollywood movies aren’t made for the US audience anymore, because the bulk of the money is now made overseas.
Amir Khalid
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve seen reports that Superman Returns actually did better business than Batman Begins.
mclaren
A subversive viewer would judge Tonto an unreliable narrator and assume that Tonto was the one cannibalizing and murdering people, then lying about it when he told the story years later.
Welcome to post-modern cinema…
mclaren
@geg6:
You’re optimistic, my man. Summer movies seem to me to be aimed at seven-year-olds.
JR in WV
I too liked Little Big Man a great deal. I enjoy magical realism in fiction, and when it’s done right it can do a great movie. Some movies that I enjoyed along those lines were The Circus of Dr Lao and Something Wicked This Way Comes (based upon a great novel by Ray Bradbury, also about a circus/carnival, sort of).
I’ve enjoyed all the Depp movies I’ve seen, mostly the Pirates series. His Captain Jack character is so unlike what most producers would think of as a pirate captain, but incorporates so many bizarre things we know pirates did – could any pirate be stranger than Blackbeard?
No telling if we’ll see TLR – but as a dream between an elderly Indian and a young would-be cowboy – it could be pretty strange and still include a lot of truth.
Wiesman
My wife and I took our two boys (9 and 6) to see on Saturday. The kids loved it. I enjoyed parts of it and found other parts really tedious. Helena Bonham Carter’s character was completely unnecessary and I have no idea what she brought to the story. I really really could have done without the slaughter of the Comanches by the US Cavalry as it also served absolutely no purpose. (Maybe that was the point?)
I totally agree with Anne Laurie’s take that all the mysticism and cartoon physics make perfect sense in the context of this movie being the vision created in the mind of a 10-year old as he listens to the story being told by someone he believes is Tonto. That part is brilliant. If the kid’s mother (somehow identified as Mrs. Moore) had come in at the end of the movie and said, “Come along, Clayton!” my appreciation for the story would have increased tenfold.
Overall, I wasn’t disappointed because the reviews had been so awful. Editing, Hollywood. Editing!
JWL
Your review of the movie is the single most damning I’ve yet to read, A.L. Your poor husband…
ricky
So if you like slow senseless movies, this is right up your alley? Having seen it, I’d say the answer is a big thumbs way up.
This movie more than deserves its reviews and its crash at the box office. Fifteen seconds of either Depp or Carter in Dark Shadows exceeded anything they produced in this stinker.
Ed Drone
Several people have indicated that “Little Big Man” first used the device of the story-being-told-by-an-old-timer, but I immediately thought of a much older version.
Laredo Crockett. There once was a daily paper strip called “Jack Armstrong (All-American Boy),” and when its popularity began to slip, in the midst of the 1950s cowboy craze, a story line began as an old codger began to relate the tale of when he was a lad, and encountered a US Marshal named Laredo Crockett. After two days, you, the reader, wer in the story of Laredo Crockett, and good old Jack Armstrong was never seen again. (At least, not in the Des Moines Register).
I wonder if any of the writers is old enough to remember that segue; perhaps the writers of “Little Big Man” were, and did.
Popular Culture has a lot to answer for; sometimes, though, pop culture can take a bow.
Ed
Don
@Hal: No, it’s a reverse restraining order.
From The Pitch Meeting for “The Lone Ranger”: