Is The Lone Ranger Another John Carter?- Page 2

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/5/13 at 4:25pm

I just wanna find out why he's called The Long Ranger.

[AnthVoice2010]

Posted: 7/5/13 at 5:09pm

I snuck into a half hour of this today...even in that short a time, the problems could be seen at once..

It's a western. America, in 2013, doesn't want to know from westerns...

You have two leading men. One, charisma free. The other, a superstar on a downward trajectory, covered head to toe in a ridiculous outfit playing a sidekick in an off putting manor. Now, those traits made this superstar a superstar once. Here, it fails him.

...it also seemed to be without pacing...sluggish.....bloated...

Finally, was anyone really jonesing for a Lone Ranger update?...I think children and adults under the age of 30 won't know what the hell its watching..

All that in a half hour..

Updated On: 7/5/13 at 05:09 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 7/5/13 at 10:04pm

"It's a western. America, in 2013, doesn't want to know from westerns..."

It's by the same team (director, producer, studio, star) as Pirates of the Caribbean, and at that time the belief was that pirate movies would never sell. SO maybe they felt cocky and that they would change minds this time too...

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/5/13 at 10:05pm

I haven't seen the movie, and now I probably won't.

But this sounds like a big missed opportunity, to really tell the Lone Ranger's story from Tonto's POV. The possibilities are enormous, not to mention controversial. They could have shown the "real" West and removed the legend. Deglamorized an American Hero and icon to show the man that became this "legend."

And yes, it would still have to be action-packed and humorous.

Sort of "Unforgiven" meets "Little Big Man."

A wasted opportunity.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/5/13 at 11:14pm

Armie Hammer is no Klinton Spilsbury, that's for dang sure.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 7/5/13 at 11:22pm

Whenever I hear his name I'm reminded of a joke my 2nd grade teacher old us that made me laugh my 7 year old ass off -


Where did George Washington keep his armies?


In his sleevies!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/5/13 at 11:29pm

What do armies keep in their skivvies?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 7/5/13 at 11:31pm

Johnnies!

[sally1112]

Posted: 7/6/13 at 1:07am

I would do that Blonde guy from Facebook.

[ArtMan]

Posted: 7/6/13 at 6:54pm

Saw this today. It's not that bad, just not that great. It has two major problems. It is way too long. The other is the screenwriters didn't know if they wanted to do a serious or "tongue in cheek" version. However, one can not keep from smiling when The Lone Ranger theme music is played for the first time. Wait for the dvd release.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 7/6/13 at 7:03pm

For anyone interested, I thought this was a really interesting read: http://www.vulture.com/2013/07/lone-ranger-is-everything-wrong-with-hollywood.html

I have zero interest in seeing this.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 7/6/13 at 7:31pm

Poor Klinton Spilsbury

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/6/13 at 9:01pm

Thank you for remembering, Roxy.

[Playbilly]

Posted: 7/6/13 at 9:07pm

Makes "Wild Wild West" look like John Ford art.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 7/7/13 at 3:07pm

I saw it this morning and did find it to be a pretty big mess. The tone is wildly all over the map- sometimes Armie is clumsy and inept, other times he's a hero and yet other times he mistakenly feels he stumbled on the set of Sophie's Choice.

Depp is more consistent with his character choices, but his delivery feels too modern, and the script supports that with anachronisms right and left. (One that irritated me was that a band played The Stars and Stripes forever, which wasn't written until 1897, although the film takes place in 1869.) Plus Depp is forced to wear ten pounds of makeup the whole movie and you can't see a single facial expression under the mask.

There was an unnecessary framing device involving Depp and a precocious child actor I desperately wanted to strangle. When you have an overlong and tedious film, why would you ever put a framing device around it?!

And if that child actor wasn't bad enough, there's another little wretch in the main story who was equally worthy of having his neck wrung. The female lead was bland as bland could be.

The only saving grace of the movie was Helena Bonham Carter in a very small role as a Madame running a burlesque/whorehouse. She knew the thing stunk and decided to camp it up.

Updated On: 7/7/13 at 03:07 PM

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 7/7/13 at 5:28pm

OUCH. Tracking at lower numbers than John Carter.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/just-49m-5-day-holiday-weekend-lone-ranger-154829883.html

[dramamama611]

Posted: 7/7/13 at 6:28pm

My folks saw this yesterday. They LOVED it. Said they nearly peed in their pants from laughing. The theater was packed.

I'm certainly not trying to suggest that my folks are, in any way, movie saavy....I'm just reporting what they said.


America, 2013, no one want to see westerns? I don't know. That True Grit remake (2 years ago?) did pretty well.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 7:50am

Westerns are very tricky now, because most of us realize that previous "tales of the West" have been exaggerated, fabricated, and skewed to be about white heroes conquering the "savages" of the plains, making this country safe for democracy.

So filmmakers have a problem. They can either go the bull**** route and get called on it by every activist group you can mention (and rightfully so, because that myth seriously does not need to be perpetuated any further), or the deconstruction route, which has already been done incredibly well in films like the Oscar-winning "Unforgiven."

So how do you tell a Western story in today's world have it be anything new? Or anything "real?" Either way, you will disappoint people. The ones who love the myth, or the ones who love the truth.

Sounds like this movie suffered from a huge identity crisis. It didn't know what it wanted to be.

By the way, for any of you in the L.A. area, I strongly encourage you to visit the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum. It's so much better than I thought I was going to be, and after I discovered it, I went several times. It's an elaborate representation of the West, broken up into several (huge) sections: the Legendary West (with all the mythological heroes many of us know, including Annie Oakely, Buffalo Bill, and the TV and movie heroes and their costumes, etc.), the Romanticized West (by people like Remington and other painters and sculptors), and the Real West, that depicts what actually happened, including the cultural and religious diversity that shaped the West (the Chinese workers, aka "Coolies" who built the railroads, the free African Americans, the Mormons, the Jews, the Native Americans, the Latinos, etc.).

If you put all of these things together, Legends, Romance, Reality, you get a great overview of what the West "really" is and "really" means to people.

Check it out sometime if you're in the area.

Updated On: 7/8/13 at 07:50 AM

[beautywickedlover]

Posted: 8/7/13 at 2:33pm

Depp and Hammer blame the critics for the film's box office total.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/08/06/lone-ranger-johnny-depp-critics/

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Johnny-Depp-Armie-Hammer-Make-Ridiculous-Claim-Critics-Tanked-Lone-Ranger-38854.html

[Kad]

Posted: 8/7/13 at 3:33pm

Pathetic. They need to own the fact they made a crummy film.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 8/7/13 at 3:45pm

The poor Indian gets screwed again courtesy of Johnny Depp.

Johnny, retiring from movies is a great idea. He may get a Razzie for this.

[dtzumbrunnen]

Posted: 8/7/13 at 4:24pm

Looks like it's only going to beat John Carter by about $10m, still resulting in a $190m loss/write-off.
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