The lone ranger- a review

I wrote this little article after I first watched The lone ranger. However, the poor boxoffice returns prompted some people who worked on this movie (Johnny Depp –if memory serves) to state that this movie hasn’t found its audience yet. That in time this movie will be seen as the ‘masterpiece’ it really is. So I decided not to post this article yet. Now, a few years later I figured the lone ranger has had its chance to become beloved. Why hasn’t it yet? Let me explain:

What is wrong with Jerry Bruckheimer?

I love his movies. Each and every one of them are marvelously produced. Not quite masterpieces, not always, but you can see the potential. You can see what he-as a producer- was trying to achieve.

However, me -sitting on the couch-would like to point out one or two things that I simply do not get about his blockbuster movies (and basically some of the blockbuster movies made in Hollywood in general).  Now I’m going to use the lone ranger as an example for this, so bare with me.

White, whiter, whitest.

Let’s get the biggest critique this movie got out of the way first: the white-washing. Again, here we have a white guy playing a non-white guy. Or Johnny Depp playing a native American. Because its Johnny Depp playing a rather weird native American and all the other Indians are in fact played by native Americans –to me- this isn’t much of a problem. It bothered me far more when jake gyllenhaal played the Prince of Persia.

The lone ranger did, however, highlight one point about Johnny Depp which is that apparently he is only happy performing when he’s in costume. Which makes him a bit of a one trick pony. But then again I’m sure he learned by now.

Money, money, money.

The lone ranger is one of the most expensive movies ever made. Some of it was due to acts of God (you can read all about it online). But, watching some behind the scenes documentaries, I noticed the amount of detail that goes into these Bruckheimer blockbuster movies. Details we don't need. I remember the behind-the-scenes documentary of the Prince of Persia movie wherein I was told all about crafted plates, gold plated sets and whatnot that would never be shown on the screen. They would all be stacked in the back never close enough for the viewer to witness.

There are vaults and vaults of materials in Hollywood. Why not reuse some?

This is a little pet problem I have with movies (I wrote about it before) wherein I cannot grasp this need to make all those detailed sets and props if it is never going to be shown.

Why not talk with the director beforehand about what kind of shots he wants to make and make the set-design accordingly?

I don't need real gold on screen. If you tell me it's gold, I'll believe you. If there's a highly decorated wall to the left but the camera never shows it, lose the wall!

I honestly believe that these movies can be made a hell of a lot cheaper if you actually know what the viewer is going to see. I mean movie magic, to me, is pretending to show something like a gigantic castle –not actually make one. A magician isn’t really going to saw through all his assistants (I hope).

Writing, wrote, written.

Now what happened to the script of the lone ranger? I mean, it’s a pretty straightforward story. Guy wants justice for his murdered brother, white-man-pretending-to-be-Indian-guy wants vengeance for the murder of his tribe. Yet all kinds of stuff are thrown in to make the movie unnecessary complex and (moreover) actually hurts the flow of the story. Some examples:

The wendigo storyline.

It would have been rather cool if the main villain was actually a wendigo. He did eat the other guy’s heart after all. But halfway through this idea of a supernatural villain was discarded. Then why put it in the first place? It feels like a remnant of an earlier draft of the story.

Unnecessary characters.

Helena Bonham Carter's character has –pretty much- no function in the overall story whatsoever. She’s there for a moment or two and then she’s gone again. You could easily erase her character altogether. But that’s fine. A lot of movies have unneeded characters. However it isn’t fine when it causes the story to touch on a dark period in history.

You see a summer blockbuster has to be fun. There has to be a treat and (sometimes) some humans might perish during the struggle. This is all fine. However, the trick is not to touch on dark elements from history. So Captain America never went into a concentration camp. And, the Indiana Jones movies never have the Nazi’s mutter anything anti-Semitic. This would harm the fun happy ride the movie is trying to deliver. 

However, in The lone ranger the moviemakers actually decided to kill countless native American’s during the last act. Which would work if there was a goal to achieve.

There are in fact two slaughters of native American tribes in this movie. The first one caused Johnny Depps character to become strange and motivate him on his path for revenge. So character development.
The second, however, has no function at all and could simply be erased from the movie.

I mean, a massacre without function, how terrible is that? If you want people to care for those who have fallen, give them a little more time for the audience to actually care about them. And make sure that there is a solid reason why they died. Because, to be honest, I feel sickened that I didn’t care about the slain Native Americans in the lone ranger, while I sure as hell care a great deal about those murdered in real life. Heck, I cared massively when the who battalion of seals were slaughtered in the Rock because they served to further the story.

So, it boils down to this, why even touch the subject?

Rewrite, rewritten, rewrote.

This all has to do with the script (and possible the millions of bits and pieces left out on the cutting room floor). The whole movie screams 'rewrites' to me and I think that the creators actually painted themselves into a corner. So much so that they inserted the element of the unreliable narrator in the story. Namely the beginning in (I believe) 1933 Chicago between the boy and Tonto Just to fill in the gaps.

Which –again- is strange because you don't need a very intelligent script to make a summer blockbuster. You, quite basically, need a villain and some good guys. We had those. But, one villain who could have been awesome (a wendigo) wasn't. Then there were far too many characters who were –pretty much- useless for the story. The female protagonist had only one scene to declare her love to the hero before all hell broke loose. And...well don't get me started on all the nonsense that went on in the final act. Did she trust the main villain, didn't she? Why did she climb out of the train? What the heck was going on?

It is popcorn entertainment, keep the story simple. If I want my intelligence to be challenged I'll try a good arthouse (though then tent to veer towards popcorn as well nowadays).

To conclude. to fix these summer blockbuster movies: cut down on the details, which we'll never see anyway and fix the scripts (get rid of unnecessary characters). There’s a reason why Blumhouse movies are doing so great nowadays: they are cheap and they sell pretty much what’s on the tin.