The Lone Ranger - Review

Before watching this, like many others, all I kept hearing about were the bad reviews that Disney's The Lone Ranger received.  The TV-series was before my time and I was never familiar with the character growing up.  The funny thing is, I was watching television and channel surfing during a commercial break when I came across Bill Engvall on Dancing with the Stars doing a paso doble to a familiar tune that I had heard before.  He was dressed in a white cowboy hat wearing a black mask and it was not until the judge commentary that I learned it was the theme song to The Lone Ranger!  I never knew that song was the theme, although I've heard it time and time again from somewhere, so this definitely peaked my interest and I wanted to watch this movie even more now to see "what went wrong."  And because of these poor reviews, my expectations were very low, but I am happy to say that I was quite surprised.  It's not a perfect film, I mean what film is, right?  It has it's hiccups but for me, it was fun, entertaining, enjoyable, and not at all what I imagined or anticipated hearing such harsh reviews from critics.

As mentioned before, I am not familiar with the mythology of the character and so watching everything unfold for the first time and learning about the Lone Ranger was very interesting to me.  Without spoiling anything, I thought the story was fun and simple and played out quite well.  It didn't seem too slow and I found myself invested in the plot throughout.  I did feel that the story revolved more around Tonto, as Johnny Depp received first-billing on the credits, and I wanted the Lone Ranger to have more of the spotlight since it is after all his movie.

Nevertheless, I thought Armie Hammer did a great job as John Reid and Johnny Depp as Tonto is unusual as always but without being too much like Jack Sparrow.  I have always been a fan of William Fichtner (Armageddon, The Dark Knight, Prison Break anyone?  Hell, he even did voice work for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Grand Theft Auto III: San Andreas!) who played villain Butch Cavendish, and he did an amazing job as usual.  Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, James Badge Dale, Helena Bonham Carter, and another favorite of mine, Barry Pepper (the sniper from Saving Private Ryan, True Grit) round out the main cast.  Everyone did a superb job!  And the final 25-minutes action sequence to the famed theme song was super fun and entertaining!  I could rewatch it over and over as the beats to the action occasionally matches the beats of the song, whether that was intentional or not.  I was surprised to learn that Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Man of Steel) did the music and has been doing the music for several big pictures now and I am very happy for him.

I don't care what the critics to say.  I would recommend watching the film for yourself and be your own judge.  It was an exhilarating, fun ride, much like Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movies were for me, and I could really overlook the flaws and watch this again and again, then again I may be partial because I love the theme song.  Cheers!

7/10