This review of Disney's The Lone Ranger may seem as disjointed and contradictory as the The Lone Ranger sometimes feels. I'm also going to be as spoiler free as possible, which may actually add to the convolution.
It's very entertaining, but overly long and predictable.
I knew the direction the movie was going in after 10 minutes, yet was still captivated.
I was engrossed by the train wrecks, and felt that the movie itself was a bit of a train wreck.
I love the way the movie is laid out, being told in a very inventive way, jumping back and forth through time, leaving you anticipating what is to come. But, as I said, I was able to anticipate the outcome very early on.
The film is a lot of fun, but very dark, and at times, sinister.
In fact, besides it's predictability, how dark and violent it turns at times is the biggest problem I had with the movie. It's being marketed to families, with a rating of PG13, but I wouldn't bring a child younger than 15.
Probably the saving grace for me was the chemistry of Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger. They are the Odd Couple of the Wild West, and their scenes together made some of the more aggressive elements of the film more palatable. Yet, at the same time, I felt a lot of the lighthearted moments between the two actors were shoe-horned in to diffuse the more aggressive aspects of the film.
My wife's opinion of the film is a lot more succinct : "If I was at home, I'd have changed the channel at a few points, but overall, it was okay."
A friend who saw it with us: "That was awful, but I didn't mind spending the money to see it."
So, is it worth seeing? Yes. Like it or not, it's a spectacle, like a train wreck, hard to look away.