It is very rare that a movie is so terribly bad that this writer can barely find any redeeming qualities about it. Sadly this weekend was one of those rare times; after watching The Lone Ranger, I came away feeling that it was a total waste of everyone’s time.
This isn’t the first time that a movie featuring the masked rider of the plains has met with box office disaster. In 1981, Warner Brothers made and released The Legend of the Lone Ranger, which was a major fiasco because of the misguided actions of the film’s executive producer, Jack Wrather. Wrather filed a lawsuit against Clayton Moore, who played the Lone Ranger in the original movies and television show. Moore had continued making public appearances in character for many years afterward. Wrather contended allowing him to continue to do so would create confusion in fans’ minds.
Wrather won and forced Moore to use dark glasses instead of the mask for a few years. When the movie was released, fans showed their feelings in the matter by staying away from the movie, causing it to fail at the box office. By the way, Moore regained the mask in a counter-suit a few years later when the judge ruled that since the movie bombed, the case was moot.
In the case of The Lone Ranger, the producers took no chances on creating ill will or bad publicity. Both they and Disney worked with Native American tribes, not only seeking their advice and counsel, but also worked with them to make sure that the character, Tonto, was presented in such a way not to offend them. They were very successful in this effort. However, they overlooked one important detail in all of the public relations work. They forgot to make a good movie.
If I were to go into all of the things wrong with this movie, I would be forced to write an e-book to state and properly elaborate on them. For the sake of brevity, I’ll confine myself to what I feel were the greatest mistakes made in the film.
When the film was announced with Johnny Depp as Tonto, fans were concerned that Tonto would become the star of the movie because of Depp’s involvement. Many fans that I spoke to in the weeks leading up to the release stated that they would more than likely not see the film because of this possible situation. I must regretfully report it was even worse than they feared.
Tonto was clearly established as the centerpiece of the movie, with the Lone Ranger reduced to being nothing more than a sidekick. On top of that, Depp appeared to this writer to have played Tonto as nothing more than a Native American version of Captain Jack Sparrow, turning Tonto into a one dimensional character. One further observation: if Tonto was to be the star of the movie, then the film should have been named as such, instead of the title it bears.
The other mistake was the cheap and excessive humor. I’m sorry but excessive humor does not work with these characters. The Lone Ranger came into being because of the murder of his brother and his fellow Texas Rangers. It has been and remains a very serious story and, with the exception of some slight humor at some points, as exhibited in the past in the original TV show and two movies on the big screen in the late 1950′s. However, in this case, the writers took the humor to an very extreme point. Those items, combined with the very bad storyline and script, made for a very fatal combination for the film and its box office.
If you are interested in seeing this horribly bad film, I would recommend waiting till it comes to a Redbox kiosk near you. It will charge about what seeing this terrible film is actually worth!
