The Lone Ranger is everything you’ve heard about it, and more. Or less, depending on how you look at it. It’s certainly richly gorgeous to look at, and the scenes of the Wild West town and the construction of the railway look fantastic. But. But. Oh where do I even begin with the buts?
The Lone Ranger is jump-the-shark literally from start to finish. The western stuff is all fine but – and I don’t mean to give anything away – it’s got all this ridiculous supernatural stuff, spirit walking and carnivorous bunnies and resurrection from the dead and a self-aware fire-jumping horse, that it’s like two completely different movies. Johnny Depp both underacts and overacts at the same time, and Armie Hammer is basically Prince Andrew Alcott from Mirror Mirror, stumbled in from that other, more charming movie. If you want to know what it’s like, think Pirates of New Mexico, all hubris and bombast and stunts and overblown score. Oh, whatever. One of these days I’ll come down off the fence and tell you what I really thought about it.