The Lone Ranger Trailer

When you go to movie as often as I do, you start to see the same trailers over and over again.  Some of them are exciting and impressive like "The Hobbit", some are merely okay and get annoying after the fifth viewing, like "21 Jump Street", and some are so bad that I fear I will kill myself the next time I have to watch this trailer.  Which leads me... to this:

I like Johnny Depp.  I like Gore Verbinski.  I liked all the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, even the really forgettable one... I think there was a mermaid or something in it.  But this is bad.  This is really bad.  First of all, I don't understand what Disney is trying to do here, "The Lone Ranger" is an intellectual property from my grandma's time.  My generation probably only knows it exists because of Looney Tunes parodies that outlived the original concept and Jim Carrey occasionally yelling "Hi-Yo, SILVER, AWAY!!"

Still, "the Lone Ranger" could have been adapted into an entertaining blockbuster mindless movie.  Its a western, I like all the action on the trains, even if its all pretty much standard "Pirates of the Caribbean" business at this point.  Those movies were exciting when they came out, but now I think we've come to the limits of slapstick blockbusters, its all been done before and better.  Arnie Hammer certainly looks like a 1940s serial star, but with that mask and his apparent inability to die I'm frightened this is going to become "The Spirit 2"*.  Only there's one big problem... and I think you already know what it is.

Johnny Depp is giving the worst performance of his life here.  Apparently he's part Cherokee on his grandmother's side or something so that means I'm not allowed to call out his performance as being the horrible racist old-Hollywood cliche that it is, but I will anyway.  Its a horrible racist old-Hollywood cliche that we as a country should have realized was offensive back in the 1970s.  I know its a call-back to the original TV show, but was that show exactly enlightened?  NO.  And beyond any Political Correctness crap (I can't believe I'm on their side for a change) the performance is just bad.  Its bizarre and flat, trying to be this zen master but at the same time a bubbling Jack Sparrow.  No, I'm not buying that at all.  This will sink this movie, I guarantee you.

So if you're an idiot, go see "Pirates of the Old West" on July 4th next year.  I'm sure I can find something better to do.

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* Actually "The Lone Ranger" becoming as fascinatingly terrible and bizarre as "The Spirit" is probably the best we can hope for out of this movie.  Everything else just looks horribly mediocre.