The Movie:

At this point, the Jerry Bruckheimer/Gore Verbinski adaptation of the old radio and TV series The Lone Ranger has been a huge box office disappointment, a critical failure, and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, one of Quentin Tarantino's ten favorite films of 2013. Well, this flick deserves neither the vitriol nor the praise. It's just... okay.

First off, it is oddly set-up as a kind of Old West buddy-cop comedy. A series of cirumstances force John Reid, aka you-know-who (The Social Network's Armie Hammer), and Tonto (Johnny Depp), to team up to hunt down Butch Cavendish (a heavily made-up William Fichtner), who has murdered members of both men's families. Reid is a straight-arrow who intends to capture Cavendish so that he can be properly tried in a court of law, while Tonto is half-mad and believes that Cavendish is a supernatural Wendigo who must be taken down with a silver bullet. As in any good buddy movie, they bicker and try to lose each other at various junctures and go at the problem alone -- until they realize that they must depend on each other if they're going to succeed.

Ruth Wilson (TV's Luther) plays the wife of John Reid's late brother, who actually dated John first, years ago. While that set-up seems ripe for drama, their relationship isn't given much room to develop, even with the film running a patience-testing 149 minutes, but she and her son (Bryant Prince) inevitably end up in danger and need saving.

Helena Bonham Carter shows up as the proprietor of a house of sin, who turns out to be sympathetic to our heroes because she too lost something to Butch Cavendish: her leg. In its place is an ivory prosthetic leg that has a gadget inside, which can pop out and fire bullets, a concept which not only rips off Grindhouse but seems like it was cooked up by Kevin Kline's character in that harebrained Wild Wild West movie from the late '90s -- where it should have remained.

Speaking of the late '90s, Tom Wilkinson seems to again be playing the same role he played in 1998's Rush Hour, i.e., a villain who we're supposed to think is not a villain for about the first two-thirds of the movie, but is pretty obviously a villain from his first frame onscreen.

Now, it's fun to poke holes in the big, silly formulaic would-be blockbuster, but here's the thing: a lot more of The Lone Ranger works than you would expect. As silly as their character arcs are, Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp have great chemistry and are a lot of fun to watch in these roles. Depp caught a lot of flack for being a mostly white dude who plays a stock Native American role. But Depp slyly uses the deep-voiced halting speech we would expect from Tonto to add a particular dryness to his wisecracks that manages to squeeze a few extra surprise laughs out. (His bizarre dead crow headdress is given an elaborate backstory, as if to say, "We didn't just put a dead bird on his head to be weird, it's for the sake of story," when the filmmakers probably could have just let sleeping crows lie.)

The somewhat trippy sense of visual humor that director Verbinski showed off in his Oscar-winning animated movie Rango resurfaces here in welcome sporadic bursts, such as the frequent, unexplained appearances of The Lone Ranger's horse in seemingly impossible places, like on a tree limb or on top of a barn. The bookending action setpieces involving out-of-control trains -- real trains built by the film crew that famously helped the production go over-budget and which are largely why Tarantino seems so impressed with the film -- are giddy, ridiculous, and frankly the main reason to watch the film. Verbinski's approach to these train chases are a bit like Buster Keaton mixed with the Mission: Impossible films -- unbelievable real stunts augmented by new-fangled movie magic (you know: computers). These sequences are so hectic that one might not fully absorb them on first viewing, but they are complex enough as to be worth revisiting.

The Blu-Ray

The Video:
As you'd hope for, with a brand-new major studio release, this 1080p 2.40:1 transfer seems pretty much perfect. I noticed a teensy bit of noise in the highlights a few times, but in the greater scheme of the film, it's a non-issue. The colors are often desaturated to give the film a kind of faded-photograph feel, although the blacks remain rich and detailed, and it all reproduces well in the home theater.

The Audio:
The Lone Ranger sports an English 7.1 DTS-HD MA track, which is two more channels than I have at home, but even with the 5.1 set-up, it is clear that this is an outstanding soundtrack. The mixture of effects and orchestral score all across the soundstage is completely engulfing without being so percussive as to pound your brain in. When there is dialogue during the big, loud action scenes, it stands out clearly without compromising the quality of the other sound elements. While I might have been let down by some of the storytelling, the sound work remained consistently impressive. The disc also has French 5.1 Dolby, Spanish 5.1 Dolby, and English Descriptive Video Service 2.0 Dolby audio tracks, plus English SDH, French subtitles, and Spanish subtitles.

Special Features:
While it would be fascinating to get a Peter Jackson-style in-depth making-of documentary for this film, or even just a director commentary, we are stuck instead with three topic-oriented behind-the-scenes featurettes. Surprisingly, these featurettes are more than just typical press-junket junk, and make for some interesting viewing. There are a few other bonuses which also turn out to be pretty pleasing.

• Riding The Rails Of The Lone Ranger (10:39, HD) - This featurette focuses on the real trains constructed for the film, allowing the filmmakers to exploit a certain level of verisimilitude that would be missing from a green-screen soundstage shoot. A nice mixture of interviews and on-set footage.
• Armie's Western Road Trip (14:37, HD) - This piece runs down the different locations where the film was shot, with lead actor Armie Hammer there to gush about the beauty and the uniqueness of every spot. While this could have been a little hokey, Hammer seems truly thrilled to be in the places he is talking about, which makes the whole thing endearing.
• Becoming A Cowboy (8:03, HD) - This featurette shows the cowboy boot camp all the actors had to go through, so that they would not only be able to ride horses, shoot guns, throw ropes, etc., for the film, but also look like they'd been doing it every day of their life. The actors come off as very funny and charming, and it is truly intriguing to see how you get a cast like this up to snuff on these skills when making Westerns is no longer common practice in Hollywood.
• Blooper Reel (3:51, HD) - This is a swiftly edited, quite funny montage. Good times.
• Deleted Scene (3:49, HD) - Most of this scene is actually a computer-animated previsualization for a scene involving a swarm of locusts that apparently never got shot, either through dropping a subplot or some other form of production rewriting. The end of the scene, which depicts an old Tonto recounting the locust attack to a little boy, is presented live-action minus a CG locust that they never got around to rendering.
• The movie is also packaged with a DVD and a code for a Disney Movie Rewards digital copy.

Final Thoughts:
While not a misunderstood masterpiece, The Lone Ranger isn't a misbegotten trainwreck (haha, get it?) either. It's the kind of thing that you would probably not bother to click away from if it came on TV. (Of course, it would probably end up running about 4 hours with commercials.) You could do a lot worse. Go ahead, Rent It.

Justin Remer is a frequent wearer of beards. His new album of experimental ambient music, Joyce, is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, and wherever else fine music is enjoyed. He directed a folk-rock documentary called Making Lovers & Dollars, which is now streaming. He also can found be found online reading short stories and rambling about pop music.