What
has this new Lone Ranger movie got? Flash and dash and a laugh or twenty-three.
And Johnny Depp.
With
a bit of computer magic there are more cliff-hanging, hair-raising, heart-stopping,
spine-tingling sequences than I’ve ever seen. And so tongue-in-cheek that
you’re bound to leave the theater laughing.
Don’t
get me wrong. There’s more than enough graphic violence to earn it its PG-13
rating. In fact, it’s my opinion that the visual and auditory intensity of the
movie should be quite enough to make it PG-13. That said, I had plenty of
warning so I could close my eyes when I didn’t want to see what was coming. (I
do that regularly in the movies, to the point that my daughter has punched me
in the ribs thinking I’d fallen asleep. Well, to be fair, I’ve done that, too,
but not in The Lone Ranger.)
I
may be old, but not old enough to remember the radio Lone Ranger. I do remember
the TV Lone Ranger. I loved it as a kid. This is not my father’s Lone Ranger,
nor my generation’s Lone Ranger, but if you remember those Lone Rangers, you’ll
get more of the jokes.
Johnny
Depp has brought us The Pirates of the Caribbean Goes West. They play fast and
loose with geography, history, physics, and probability theory. But the bad
guys are ugly and mean. The whore has a heart of gold and a leg of another
precious material. The school marm doesn’t teach school but she’s lovely,
sweet, and vulnerable. And the hero wears a white hat.
What
more could you want?
A
side-kick, of course. Who, in this movie, is really the main character. Johnny
Depp as the wise and wonderful wizard of odd. He’s Tonto wearing a dead crow on
his head and leading the wrong brother by the nose into hero-hood.
And
the score is grand. I swear I heard bits of Carmina Burana in there. Well,
maybe not, but they finally did get around to The William Tell Overture and
Silver reared up and The Lone Ranger shouted “Hiyo, Silver! Away!”
To
which Tonto responded… Well, that would be giving it away. Go see the movie and
don’t be afraid to laugh.
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