Hi-yo Silver, Tonto, Kemosahbee, and the stirring William Tell Overture are almost as much a part of Americana as the old west itself. But what happens when the team (Gore Verbinski, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Johnny Depp) that brought you the Pirates of the Caribbean try to reinvent this American icon for the modern age? A lot.
I perhaps am one of the only 19 year olds who actually grew up watching the original TV show and now own quite a few episodes on DVD so going in as an original fan I had an idea that it would be nothing like the show but perhaps still fun. Don't get me wrong, there are glaring differences between the original and this rip roaring, mega expensive flick but perhaps more shocking are the similarities. A few shots looked ripped right out of the original and colored in.
The film starts surprisingly in San Fransisco in 1933 at a fair. A young boy dressed as the iconic hero wanders the grounds taking in the sites and eventually walks into the old west show. After viewing the buffalo and grizzly bear he approaches what appears to be a mannequin in The Nobel Savage exhibit but it turns out to be the elderly Tonto in what looks to be his last job. Tonto of course, begins to recount the glorious days of old when a pacifist lawyer came west to spread lawfulness by spouting John Locke... Wait what? Yes the hero had a less than heroic beginning but thankfully the story travels quickly into the stuff of legend with Tonto and the ex-lawyer John Reid riding side by side, stopping outlaws, racing trains, snarkly insulting each other, and rescuing damsels in distress. The filmmakers brilliantly tease the William Tell Overture at the beginning of the film and then make you wait a full two hours before hearing the heroic cords in their full glory.
FYI for families: If you're thinking to take your young child or grandchild to relive the glory of your own childhood, you may want to know about the cannibalism, scalping, and frantic gun play.
Now this brings me to my final note: the critics. The critics of Entertainment Weekly, New York Times and pretty much anywhere else have cooked this movies goose. Lambasting it for its unreal action, over long story, and Jack Sparrowing the old west. Don't listen to them. Modern day critics are suffering from what I like to call NAM syndrome. As in: Not Awards Movie. No the Lone Ranger will never win an award (except most expensive western perhaps). It doesn't have craggy faced Daniel Day-Lewis in it nor is it masterfully directed by Ben Affleck. But it is something that few movies are anymore: fun. You enjoy the banter between Tonto and The Lone Ranger, you guiltily love the insane action sequences, and you let yourself be taken back to a time when heroes were looked at as larger than life. The critics have forgotten how to enjoy a movie for its escapism, but I guarantee that seeing the original masked man ride his noble steed silver along the roof tops of the speeding train to the grand Overture will make you want to stand and cheer. And whats so wrong with that?
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