A viewer could be excused for expecting a measure of splashy amusement from Disney's revival of that paragon of Western uprightness, the Lone Ranger. The film, after all, reunites Johnny Depp with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski and scripters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. To be sure, The Lone Ranger is chockablock with fine visual effects, opulent historical-fantasy design, and breathless (if cartoonish) action. Unfortunately, the film buckles under a burden of genre triteness, dopey dialogue, and tonal confusion.
The feature retains some mythology from the original squeaky-clean radio program and television series, adding a twist here and there. In the 19th-century American West, attorney Dan Reid (Armie Hammer) is ambushed by outlaws and left for dead in the desert, where he is rescued by Comanche mystic Tonto (Depp). Reid thereafter dons a mask to pursue a straight-arrow brand of vigilante justice against the lawbreakers, who are of course merely the minions of a hidden villain. The film adds in plenty of familiar Western elements—a damsel in distress, a saucy madam, a silver mine, a sinister railroad company—but utilizes them in the blandest manner possible.
The film's most persistent and pervasive flaw, however, is that it feels frustratingly compromised. At times, The Lone Ranger seems to be aspiring to be an old-fashioned sagebrush adventure, albeit one slathered in PG-13 violence and spattered with juvenile humor. In some moments, however, the film resembles a deconstructive satire of the original characters. The filmmakers' inability to decide exactly how the approach a Boy Scout hero in 2013 ultimately derails The Lone Ranger into overwrought forgettability.
