The Lone Ranger Review

1st Aug 2013

The Pirates of the Caribbean team band together again and go all western on us with the updated and adapted version of The Lone Ranger. Sadly they all felt the need to bring their baggage with them, and clearly they are starting to run out of ideas.

The upside is that Armie Hammer makes for a decent enough lead in the titular role. Johnny Depp is on hand pretty much doing that thing he does. Their common foe this time round who has wronged them both is Butch Cavendish (an always enjoyable William Fichtner).

When JohnReid’s brother Dan is taken down in the line of duty and John is left for dead, the mysterious (or just plain odd) Tonto comes to his rescue and the two form the pre-requisite uneasy bond as they set out to make things right.

The main problems are with the pace and the running time of the film. It takes an age to get going and when it does it seems the team don’t have enough good ideas for the action, the drama or even the jokes. It all runs a bit dry and we are forever interrupted by a truly annoying framing device for the story involving an annoying doe eyed child actor and a heavily made up Johnny Depp.

It’s a true shame as there is clearly a lot of worth in the idea of updating this story and there could have been a lot of fun. But a writing team that once did the Zorro update, the Pirates movies and now this, it is clear that the trajectory of their writing skills are starting to wither and they need to pass these duties onto fresher brains.