Superhero Media: The Lone Ranger (2013)

Oh, so Disney has the rights to The Lone Ranger, no wonder The Green Hornet didn't reference it, they would have had the pants sued off them. Actually, this film reminds me a lot of The Green Hornet in more ways than the obvious narrative connection; both have an acting choice that severely hurts the overall production, both show glimpses of the, far better, films they could be and both give a contemporary reworking (of a kind) that seems utterly unnecessary. Let's get it out of the way first, Johnny Depp was a terrible choice for Tonto, on many levels. Having a white actor play a Native American in a film where American colonialism is destroying the last of the Native Nations just seems like a phenomenally idiotic choice that someone should have caught before any filming started. I certainly get why Depp got the role, Disney were hoping to have another Pirates of the Caribbean level success with Depp as the draw-card, it just smacks of poor decision making and insular Hollywood ignorance of broader cultural issues. 

What really grates is that every other Native American in the film (even young Tonto) is played by a Native American actor and they are all killed off at the end of the second act. There's also a sub-plot with Tonto hunting a Wendigo that turns out to be his imagination, except that the guy may have eaten a woman's leg? That never gets resolved, by the way. All this is really a shame, because with a decent Tonto, or at least less of a focus on him, The Lone Ranger could have been a much better film. John Reid is a District Attorney chasing criminal Butch Cavendish into "Indian Territory", joining his brother Dan's Ranger posse to hunt Cavendish down. The posse is ambushed and everyone is killed, only for John to be resurrected by a spirit horse to become the "Spirit Walker", champion of justice. The film follows the protagonists as they hunt down Cavendish and his men, there's some kind of plot developments with a silver mine and an evil railway tycoon, but they fail to excite once you get there.

The one element that almost saves the film comes in the finale, in which The Lone Ranger finally emerges, prancing horse, silver bullets, William Tell Overture all combined with a dramatic chase across two runaway trains. It's pretty damn awesome. In fact, it's probably worth sticking out the entire film for; no really. Someone came in as I was watching the finale and commented that the film looked really good, sat down and watched the remainder. I'm somewhat reminded of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, as both that and The Lone Ranger are pretty dull, focus too much on a tired Johnny Depp caricature and one hell of an epic battle that I loved (the big ship battle in Pirates). Look, this is on Netflix, you can gain access to liquor, give it a go, even just to see the finale. As disappointing as it was, The Lone Ranger did bring to mind the many great costumed heroes of the Old West that I can get to work on down the track. Jonah Hexx, Two-Gun Kid, Lone Ranger team-up here we come!