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TV show review: CONTINUUM season 4
PHOTOGRAPHY

THE LONE RANGER (2013)

Blu-ray review by David Blackwell

 

DETAILS:  149 minutes, three featurettes, deleted scene, bloopers, DVD, digital copy

VIDEO:  2.40:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen) 1080p High Definition

AUDIO:  English 7.1 DTS-HD MA (blu-ray), English 5.1 Dolby Digital (DVD), French 5.1 DD, Spanish 5.1 DD, English 2.0 DVS Dolby Digital

Subtitles:  English SDH, French, Spanish

 

STUDIO: Walt Disney Pictures/ Jerry Bruckheimer Films

Theatrical RELEASE DATE:  7-3-2013

Blu-ray/ DVD RELEASE DATE:  12-17-2013

 

STARRING Johnny Depp (Tonto), Armie Hammer (Lone Ranger/ John Reid), William Fichtner (Butch Cavendish), Tom Wilkinson (latham Cole), Barry Pepper (Captain Jay Fuller), Helena Bonham Carter (Red Harrington), Ruth Wilson (Rebecca Reid), James Badge Dale (Dan Reid)

WRITTEN by Ted Elliot, Terry Rossio, and Justin Haythe

DIRECTED by Gore Verbinski

An elderly Tonto tells a young boy a story about how the Lone Ranger and Tonto got together in what you could call the story of the unreliable narrator which does jump a little bit (due to Tonto being crazy and being old in 1933 as he tells the boy the story which takes place back in 1869).  John Reid is a morally uptight lawyer who decides to move back to his home of Colby, Texas where his brother Dan (the Texas Ranger) has married Rebecca (the girl John has always been in love with).  Murderous criminal Butch Cavendish (played excellently by a very unrecognizable William Fichtner) happens to being transported on the same train John is traveling in.  Butch and Tonto are prisoners in the same car.  Tonto wants to kill Butch Cavendish because he believes Butch is a wendigo, but John trying to stop Butch from escaping and a rescue by Butch’s gang gets in the way.  Soon, John is joining Dan and a posse of Texas Rangers to recapture Cavendish to hang for his crimes.   However, an ambush by Butch’s gang results in everyone except a traitor and John being killed.  Tonto and the crazy spirit horse Silver save John and thus begins John’s quest as the masked lone ranger to bring Butch to justice for Dan’s death.

 

THE LONE RANGER is an overlong and somewhat enjoyable Western reimagining of the Lone Ranger character for the 21st century with Johnny Depp playing another eccentric character (or Tonto as performed by Johnny Depp being Tonto).  I am still not totally convinced by the flashback story structure as told by the unreliable narrator.   The $250 million spent to make this film is all screen except for the amounts of money paid to secure Johnny, Armie Hammer, and Gore Verbinski (even though they supposedly waived 20 percent of their salaries to help trim the budget which ended up costing the amount they tried to trim to make it a little cheaper).  The action scenes and the various bits of humor are great, but I do think they could have trimmed back on the budget given they somehow ended up spending $250 million to make this movie in an attempt to build another franchise to succeed Pirates of the Caribbean (which has a fifth film coming in the future).   Then you have to remember it is Gore Verbinski who dream big for the second and third Pirates movies.

 

Also the other big problem is the movie is an origin story   did they need to spend a movie telling the origin of the Lone Ranger via Tonto (who is crazy as a bat as he always feeds the dead bird on his head).   You have the love interest, the brothel owner who wants to help them get Cavendish, and the usual corruption in the railroad and military plot line mixed in with the often repeated military vs. Native Americans story (which is just a smoke screen for the actual plot).  Then you have Johnny Depp trying to be another eccentric character who is over-the-top like other eccentric Johnny Depp has played so many times.  THE LONE RANGER isn’t the train wreck that WILD WILD WEST was years ago, but I hope they learn to trim the fat and make a leaner western with a smaller budget for the sequel.  This film is the type of movie that audiences will enjoy more than critics, but still the director could have made this movie shorter because I was looking at my watch from time to time.  It isn’t an entirely successful movie, but making back the budget is the hurdle that has to be overcome before they can even make a sequel.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The deleted scene is mostly was never finished and you get see it in previz form with only a small part of the scenes was actually shot.

 

Bloopers mainly consist of line fluffs and people falling off horses (or not getting on the horse).

 

ARMIE’S WESTERN ROAD TRIP- this video diary has Armie takes viewers on a tour of the various locations used in THE LONE RANGER in addition to hearing from the locals and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

BECOMING A COWBOY- behind the scenes of the cast going to Cowboy Boot Camp to learn all the things that cowboys do.

RIDING THE RAILS OF THE LONE RANGER- see how they made the railroad scenes from building tracks to driving around with the train cars on flatbed trailers on the roads to the CGI work involved in some of the major scenes.

 

Also included in this combo pack is the movie in standard definition on DVD and a digital copy of the film you can stream and download to your smart phones, tablets, computers, and TVs.

 

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:  I wish the LONE RANGER blu-ray had more making-of extras than just 30 minutes.  The movie isn’t as bad as some would suggest even though it is a little bloated with a few missteps in the story.

 

This review is (c)12-13-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com