Escape to the Movies: The Lone Ranger
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Funny, I'd heard that Johnny Depp was the only good part of the movie. Ah well, there's only a couple weeks until Pacific Rim.
I'm getting pretty tired of starting out thinking 'this movie looks stupid, but I'm sure it will at least be fun', only to have people tell me 'it's horrible, and boring'. I mean, is it seriously THAT hard to make a solid action movie these days?
And here I thought that the worst thing I'd see in this review is just how bad the movie. But no...Eric Sachs. Oyyy.
Also, offtopic, am I the ONLY one getting utterly frustrated by that sandal advert in all of Escapist's stuff now? Had to watch it three times because the video crashed twice. New adverts, please.
Also, offtopic, am I the ONLY one getting utterly frustrated by that sandal advert in all of Escapist's stuff now? Had to watch it three times because the video crashed twice. New adverts, please.
The guys who wrote this have no idea how to reconcile differences in tone. They obviously want to try to do a very grand, almost Errol Flynn type adventure but then they juxtapose it over Fichtner eating people. At the very least I hope this serves as a wakeup call to Verbinski and Depp because the former has done nothing but bloated, boring movies for too long and the latter needs to start taking acting seriously again.
Also, has Michael Bay ever actually SEEN an Asian person before? I think he literally doesn't know that Asia actually exists. It probably wouldn't have been that hard to get an Asian actor to play Shredder either.
Also, has Michael Bay ever actually SEEN an Asian person before? I think he literally doesn't know that Asia actually exists. It probably wouldn't have been that hard to get an Asian actor to play Shredder either.
I believe this was being greenlit/made (like Man of Steel) when The Dark Knight was the big action film of the moment which meant studios went in the direction of grim and gritty. Hopefully the success of the Avengers will mean studios will see that (with its over the top action, brightness and humour) as the next big thing to copy and so not leave us in a "Dark Age" of action films.Daaaah Whoosh said:
Sad on some many levels.
Westerns are actually a good setting for a film since you can tell so many stories with that sort of back drop. But I'm willing to bet that Hollywood will take the wrong lesson if the film fails and blame Westerns for the failures instead of it being a bad film that just happens to be set in the West.
Talented actors who aren't white but we still seem stuck with the idea from some production teams that we need a white guy to play the part. Heck it might have even been a great time to give some up and coming Native American actor a shot at the big time. But no we still live in an age where some foolish production team can say let's make Shredder white because there aren't any talented Asian actors to be found anywhere on the planet.
In an age where the boyscout has been taken out of so many heroes this might have been a chance to cash in on the built up nostalgia for a pure hero, but instead it's riding the same formula and hope people aren't tired of it by now.
As someone who watched the old reruns as a child I wanted this to be a good movie, but sadly these days you don't often get what you want out of Hollywood.
Westerns are actually a good setting for a film since you can tell so many stories with that sort of back drop. But I'm willing to bet that Hollywood will take the wrong lesson if the film fails and blame Westerns for the failures instead of it being a bad film that just happens to be set in the West.
Talented actors who aren't white but we still seem stuck with the idea from some production teams that we need a white guy to play the part. Heck it might have even been a great time to give some up and coming Native American actor a shot at the big time. But no we still live in an age where some foolish production team can say let's make Shredder white because there aren't any talented Asian actors to be found anywhere on the planet.
In an age where the boyscout has been taken out of so many heroes this might have been a chance to cash in on the built up nostalgia for a pure hero, but instead it's riding the same formula and hope people aren't tired of it by now.
As someone who watched the old reruns as a child I wanted this to be a good movie, but sadly these days you don't often get what you want out of Hollywood.
Yeah, I think this review is fair, Bob comes off a little harsh but not inaccurate.
The movie just can't decide whether it wanted to inject some mysticism and magic into its mythos, or whether it wanted to play 'the straight man'. So what you get are a lot of weird out of place things, a lot of stock wild west villains (The Evil Railroad baron, the super creepy evil Bandit, and by the end, the 'okay with Native American Genocide' Cavalry general), and not enough SWEET WILD WEST SHOOTOUTs which is what I signed up for.
Seriously, its pretty clear that Disney wants a NEW franchise to replace PotC, they've tried Prince of Persia, John Carter, and now the Lone Ranger, and each FAIL because they...I don't know..I guess they just cookie-cut it, with a Johnny Depp silhouette.
The movie itself is just meh by the end of it. I get the rage at Johnny Depp (playing a native american), but I'll just focus on the movie itself. It had some moments that were kinda funny, until... 'oh..wait, hes weird because he has PTSD,...well thats not funny at all'.
Quite frankly, The movie needed the following:
-Allow more mysticism. Why not? Just let the horse be a 'spirit horse', let the evil bandit actually turn into a Wendigo. Make the weird things Tonto does have some magic reason behind them, rather than then end up being the quirks of a mad man. Let the crazy magic silver be crazy magic silver. You want to know what'd be more exciting than the 'wacky' blockbuster train fight ending? DOING IT WITH A SWEET CGI WENDIGO, instead of... what we got.
- Let the Lone Ranger be THE LONE RANGER, instead of basically a lucky moron.
-Drop any pretense of Love interest. You can basically remove basically every female secondary character from this movie and it'd be the same movie. Same goes for the Kid, which was awful whenever he was onscreen.
The movie just can't decide whether it wanted to inject some mysticism and magic into its mythos, or whether it wanted to play 'the straight man'. So what you get are a lot of weird out of place things, a lot of stock wild west villains (The Evil Railroad baron, the super creepy evil Bandit, and by the end, the 'okay with Native American Genocide' Cavalry general), and not enough SWEET WILD WEST SHOOTOUTs which is what I signed up for.
Seriously, its pretty clear that Disney wants a NEW franchise to replace PotC, they've tried Prince of Persia, John Carter, and now the Lone Ranger, and each FAIL because they...I don't know..I guess they just cookie-cut it, with a Johnny Depp silhouette.
The movie itself is just meh by the end of it. I get the rage at Johnny Depp (playing a native american), but I'll just focus on the movie itself. It had some moments that were kinda funny, until... 'oh..wait, hes weird because he has PTSD,...well thats not funny at all'.
Quite frankly, The movie needed the following:
-Allow more mysticism. Why not? Just let the horse be a 'spirit horse', let the evil bandit actually turn into a Wendigo. Make the weird things Tonto does have some magic reason behind them, rather than then end up being the quirks of a mad man. Let the crazy magic silver be crazy magic silver. You want to know what'd be more exciting than the 'wacky' blockbuster train fight ending? DOING IT WITH A SWEET CGI WENDIGO, instead of... what we got.
- Let the Lone Ranger be THE LONE RANGER, instead of basically a lucky moron.
-Drop any pretense of Love interest. You can basically remove basically every female secondary character from this movie and it'd be the same movie. Same goes for the Kid, which was awful whenever he was onscreen.
Really Bob? Stupid hat? You start by berating Depp for playing Tonto as he is a white guy and then go on to insult the crow hat thing even though thats authentic native american head gear. Its why Depp wore that, because the indians did, he took that from seeing old photos of actual native americans. Granted, im guessing it was probably more for ceremonies and not on a day to day basis, but still its authentic.
Given the fact that casting Johnny Depp as Tonto is perhaps the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas from Hollywood, I don't blame Bob for spoiling the hell out of this movie. This turd was D.O.A. from the start and I'll be glad to see this god awful misfire tank harder than Pluto Nash.
Also, hiring William Fichtner to play Shredder in the TMNT reboot... a white man playing an Asian role... now named Eric Sachs?!?
I Hate you, Michael Bay! I hate your over-hyped, military wanking-off, shaky-cam abusing, douche-bag guts with a passion of a thousand exploding suns! You better pray to your Satanic master that we never meet face to face. Because there is no jury in America that will find me guilty for what happens if and when we meet.
Also, hiring William Fichtner to play Shredder in the TMNT reboot... a white man playing an Asian role... now named Eric Sachs?!?
I Hate you, Michael Bay! I hate your over-hyped, military wanking-off, shaky-cam abusing, douche-bag guts with a passion of a thousand exploding suns! You better pray to your Satanic master that we never meet face to face. Because there is no jury in America that will find me guilty for what happens if and when we meet.
I feel compelled to ask:
People complained about Idris Elba playing Heimdall. They were greeted with "stop being so closed-minded! it's just a movie and Idris is a great actor."
Johnny Depp plays Tonto, and it's extremely racist. Please don't get me wrong. When I heard Idris was playing Hemidall I knew people would get offended, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. Some made the argument "what if they got a white man to play John Shaft?" and I think it's valid.
With Depp playing Tonto, I again expected this negativity, but can anyone explain the double standard?
I'm not bothered by Depp playing Tonto, and it honestly gives me pause. I ask myself "shouldn't this be something that offends you?" But then I answer myself "You weren't offended when they hired a black man to play the whitest of the gods, so why would a white man playing a native american offend you?
People complained about Idris Elba playing Heimdall. They were greeted with "stop being so closed-minded! it's just a movie and Idris is a great actor."
Johnny Depp plays Tonto, and it's extremely racist. Please don't get me wrong. When I heard Idris was playing Hemidall I knew people would get offended, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. Some made the argument "what if they got a white man to play John Shaft?" and I think it's valid.
With Depp playing Tonto, I again expected this negativity, but can anyone explain the double standard?
I'm not bothered by Depp playing Tonto, and it honestly gives me pause. I ask myself "shouldn't this be something that offends you?" But then I answer myself "You weren't offended when they hired a black man to play the whitest of the gods, so why would a white man playing a native american offend you?