30 June 2013 9:00 PM, PDT | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
In classic Westerns, the hero rides off into the sunset, but in “The Lone Ranger,” it’s Tonto we see shambling off toward Monument Valley as the credits roll. No longer simply the sidekick, Tonto gets top billing in Disney’s extravagant but exhausting reboot, whose vaguely revisionist origin story partners a heavily face-painted Johnny Depp with the blandly handsome Armie Hammer. Directed by “Pirates of the Caribbean’s” Gore Verbinski, this over-the-top oater delivers all the energy and spectacle audiences have come to expect from a Jerry Bruckheimer production, but sucks out the fun in the process, ensuring sizable returns but denying the novelty value required to support an equivalent franchise.
See Also: Will ‘Lone Ranger’ Make Armie Hammer a Superstar?
It’s a testament to Depp’s Lon Chaney-like ability to reinvent himself from role to role that so much of Bruckheimer’s quarter-of-a-billion-dollar gamble rides on »
- Peter Debruge
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