THE LONE RANGER (Gore Verbinski) Rating: NNN
The Lone Ranger is largely occupied with Johnny Depp farting around under heavy makeup as the hero’s faithful Indian companion, Tonto. Movies have been built on less, from “Johnny Depp farts around as a pirate” to “Johnny Depp farts around as a vampire” from last year’s Dark Shadows.
The difference between Gore Verbinski and Tim Burton is that Verbinski makes other things happen while Depp farts around – and so The Lone Ranger is an entertaining, occasionally thrilling western that relaunches the horse-riding avenger for a new generation with Armie Hammer as a credible if slightly goofy hero.
As he did in his Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy, Verbinski refuses to condescend to the material, grounding the characters in a hyper-realistic world and choreographing astoundingly complex action sequences with real stakes and an admirable respect for physics.
But at two and a half hours, The Lone Ranger falls victim to the same gargantuan scale that eventually sank At World’s End. The climax is tremendous fun, but it takes forever to get there.
