The Lon Rangar

According to the internets, I am to be offended by this movie without even needing to see it because they cast Johnny "not really a Cherokee" Depp as Tonto. (Or rather, as "usual crazy Johnny Depp".) When I've heard that sort of racial casting before, you know what else was true? The rest of the movie was bad. Yes, I'm looking at you Last Airbender... and this one isn't straying far from that form.

When I think of the Lone Ranger, in particular the TV series (which I never saw), I think of an actor that took the part earnestly and genuinely cared about how the character was portrayed... and with this movie, it seems that the portrayal is one of slapstick and cheap jokes at the expense of the second lead. By which I mean that the main lead is Johnny's Tonto. Funny pratfall or girlish scream? Give it to the guy in the mask. When the Lone Ranger music kicked in, all I could think was 'this is a desecration of all that that show stood for'. And the rest of the story wasn't doing anything innovative either.

Aside from Johnny we have Armie Hammer as that guy in the mask (which changed from cloth to leather and back again as the scene demanded), and William Fichtner channelling Billy Drago as John Bly. Tom Wilkinson was in this and played a character names James Reid (the name of the Lone Ranger in this) in The Green Hornet, who is the Lone Ranger's nephew's son. (Yes, really.)

And my lasting memory of this movie... brown. Lots and lots of brown.

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