The Lone Ranger

People warned me at work. They said, "Philip... don't watch The Lone Ranger. It's two and a half hours of nothing."

Maybe I'm paraphrasing and maybe that's not a direct quote. But I've been warned nonetheless.

What makes The Lone Ranger so hard to watch is what makes every recent Disney live-action movie so bad-- it's contrived.

I've noticed ever since the Pirates sequels that Walt Disney Studios is trying to go for a more "gritty, edgy" feel with their movies. Pirates of the Caribbean 3, for example, starts off with a boy getting hanged, immediately followed by a hooker getting shot in the face.

The Lone Ranger contains scenes of murder, cannibalism, even several allusions to rape. But they market these films for all ages... so who are they for, really?

My problem with these movies is that they're clearly Frankenstein monsters. Too much of the studio gets involved and the movies end up having no real sense of direction or even target audience. There's no unique style to The Lone Ranger, John Carter, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Oz the Great and Powerful. They just write the most generalized dialogue so as to attract the widest possible audience. They drag on, delivering one liners that the writers or producers think would be funny for a trailer. There's no substance, no empathy for the characters on screen because they're clearly just vessels for the writers to fill in screen time. Which brings me to my next point.

This.

Since when was the old Lone Ranger t.v. series supposed to be "badass"? For some reason (which it turns out is the massive audience turnout), Hollywood is obsessed with making every possible character in literature and vintage t.v. more "epic" and "hardcore". In Disney's revamped version of "The Lone Ranger" (I'm just going to spoil it), Jack Sparrow and Armie Hammer fight the tyrannical William Fichtner and Tom Wilkinson over silver and the transcontinental railroad, or something. I don't know. Disney movies always have too many subplots and flashbacks-- The point is it's unnecessarily convoluted to the point where I wanted to stop half-way through but forced myself to finish it so I can preach to the world and help you. Save yourself, child! Watch a real western like:

For A Few Dollars More

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Django Unchained

3:10 to Yuma (the original)

True Grit (the remake)

No Country for Old Men (a modern western)

Or how about Tombstone?

I've just listed seven fantastic westerns that are so entrancing and so proper in their genre, they don't need hours of circular dialogue and feral CGI bunnies (which The Lone Ranger has plenty of).

Oh, also, Hans Zimmer plays the Pirates of the Caribbean theme throughout the entire movie until the final boss battle where they play the William Tell Overture finale for almost fifteen minutes straight. Yes, really.

You've been a good sport for reading this blog. I think I'll write about a good movie next time.

Au revoir,

-Philip