Im going on the offensive on this one: I call shenanigans and take Tarantinos side - THE LONE RANGER was NOT a bad movie, it was actually a GOOD movie. I wish it had been the GREAT movie it showed the potential for. Like the honey badger, The Lone Ranger just dont give a %#$&. Oh, dont get me wrong - the film was tonally all over the map, sure. It was a bit bloated in the middle and dragged in the second act. No argument there. It was not NEARLY the brilliant post-modern Western that RANGO (ALSO by Gore Verbinksi) was. Few movies are. It was possibly the most violent and dark PG-13 bit of mainstream entertainment since TEMPLE OF DOOM. Definitely. It bit off way more than it could chew thematically and its political statements were muddled and pointless when all the dust settled - sure thing. It becomes a totally different movie in the third act. Yup. These do NOT make it the disastrous train-wreck that critics have panned it as. Those are just genuine comments worth discussing. I will defend The Lone Ranger as one of the few ambitious blockbusters Ive seen in a LONG time. If you shut it off after the first 30 minutes, you will have watched one of the most flawlessly executed action sequences youve probably ever seen. I think I fell for the movie during the Muybridge-galloping-horse-zoetrope-in-train-windows gag. The only other contemporary filmmaker who can juggle tone with such flair and creativity is Stephen Chow - in fact, if theres any films Lone Ranger resembles most they are modern Hong Kong cinema. Like those, it has a love of physicality, shifting gears between genres (sometimes within scenes) and probably too much affection for a genre of films that contemporary American audiences have no interest in (name another 2013 movie that references Once Upon a Time in the West AND The General). But there are moments in this movie so damn exceptional that I refuse to talk about them for fear of spoiling the surprises. Gore Verbinskis a weird dude, but Im glad theres someone out there making things for the same wavelength I tap into. In closing, Im genuinely flabbergasted this movie got the cold shoulder it did. It deserved to be discussed and criticized, sure, but when a movie generates the response What was THAT?!?!? remember Im usually on the side of That was something else, huh!?!?! with a big shit-eating grin.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 23:24:31 +0000
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