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| Version 2 | Version 3 |
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| The Lone Ranger – review | The Lone Ranger – review |
| (3 months later) | |
| Bad news for those who come to dance on the grave of the Hollywood western or gawp at the wreckage of a $250m (£165m) blockbuster run clean off of the rails. The Lone Ranger – despite manifest problems and a scathing reception in the US last week – is not quite the flat-out, jaw-dropping calamity that some would have had us believe. | Bad news for those who come to dance on the grave of the Hollywood western or gawp at the wreckage of a $250m (£165m) blockbuster run clean off of the rails. The Lone Ranger – despite manifest problems and a scathing reception in the US last week – is not quite the flat-out, jaw-dropping calamity that some would have had us believe. |
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| Context is all in a case such as this. If your expectations are low enough, even a paunchy, muddled, overstuffed horse opera can start to feel like a triumph of sorts. | Context is all in a case such as this. If your expectations are low enough, even a paunchy, muddled, overstuffed horse opera can start to feel like a triumph of sorts. |
| The Lone Ranger first cantered on to the airwaves of a Detroit radio station in the 1930s, with his subsequent escapades spun out as a set of dimestore novels, then a 1950s TV serial. Now he's back, dusted down and overhauled by the Pirates of the Caribbean team of director Gore Verbinski and actor Johnny Depp. The new-model Ranger has been re-kitted in a revisionist costume and forced to cede top billing to his Native American sidekick. | The Lone Ranger first cantered on to the airwaves of a Detroit radio station in the 1930s, with his subsequent escapades spun out as a set of dimestore novels, then a 1950s TV serial. Now he's back, dusted down and overhauled by the Pirates of the Caribbean team of director Gore Verbinski and actor Johnny Depp. The new-model Ranger has been re-kitted in a revisionist costume and forced to cede top billing to his Native American sidekick. |
| And yet the makeover feels makeshift and ungainly, and it throws out the film's balance. The Lone Ranger staggers drunkenly from antic comedy to soulful solemnity to bloody horror without ever quite settling, or deciding what it is. Along the way, it makes an oddly fascinating spectacle of itself. | And yet the makeover feels makeshift and ungainly, and it throws out the film's balance. The Lone Ranger staggers drunkenly from antic comedy to soulful solemnity to bloody horror without ever quite settling, or deciding what it is. Along the way, it makes an oddly fascinating spectacle of itself. |
| Depp stars as Tonto, a lugubrious Comanche spirit guide who appears to be channelling the spirit of Buster Keaton. | Depp stars as Tonto, a lugubrious Comanche spirit guide who appears to be channelling the spirit of Buster Keaton. |
| Armie Hammer plays John Reid, the priggish young lawyer turned masked avenger. Together, Tonto and the Ranger run across railroad tycoons, cackling cannibals and brothel madams; their friendship forged in the heat of a mission that involves illicit silver mines and a plan to force the Comanche off their land. | Armie Hammer plays John Reid, the priggish young lawyer turned masked avenger. Together, Tonto and the Ranger run across railroad tycoons, cackling cannibals and brothel madams; their friendship forged in the heat of a mission that involves illicit silver mines and a plan to force the Comanche off their land. |
| The problem, though, is that Depp and Hammer appear to be performing in entirely different movies, with each man only vaguely aware of the presence of the other. Depp has a dead crow in his hair and seems wary of turning his head in case the movement shakes it loose. | The problem, though, is that Depp and Hammer appear to be performing in entirely different movies, with each man only vaguely aware of the presence of the other. Depp has a dead crow in his hair and seems wary of turning his head in case the movement shakes it loose. |
| Hammer, for his part, looks almost touchingly vacant, with a faint lag to his dialogue that made me half-wonder if he was being fed his lines through an earpiece. Both actors are talking, though it may not be to each other. | Hammer, for his part, looks almost touchingly vacant, with a faint lag to his dialogue that made me half-wonder if he was being fed his lines through an earpiece. Both actors are talking, though it may not be to each other. |
| Scarred by a troubled production history, reeling from a disastrous turn at the US box office, The Lone Ranger is already being written off as this year's big summer flop. | Scarred by a troubled production history, reeling from a disastrous turn at the US box office, The Lone Ranger is already being written off as this year's big summer flop. |
| Undeniably the film is riddled with flaws, from its bleary lack of focus to its glaring lack of chemistry. Even so, there's something charming about its fumbling, melancholy course to the credits. It contains just enough rum moments to spark the genre into life, and just enough boldness to twist it into curious new shapes. By the end I even found myself wondering about the dead crow in Tonto's hair, which our hero insists is not really dead - at least not in the way that we understand the term - but is instead "awaiting spirits to return". | Undeniably the film is riddled with flaws, from its bleary lack of focus to its glaring lack of chemistry. Even so, there's something charming about its fumbling, melancholy course to the credits. It contains just enough rum moments to spark the genre into life, and just enough boldness to twist it into curious new shapes. By the end I even found myself wondering about the dead crow in Tonto's hair, which our hero insists is not really dead - at least not in the way that we understand the term - but is instead "awaiting spirits to return". |
| The spirits fly in and out of The Lone Ranger at random. It's nice to see them come and go. I just wish they'd stay for longer. | The spirits fly in and out of The Lone Ranger at random. It's nice to see them come and go. I just wish they'd stay for longer. |
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