The Lone Ranger (2013)

Armie Hammer isn’t quite sure how to tell Johnny Depp he has a dead bird on his head.

(2013) Western (Disney) Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Helena Bonham Carter, Ruth Wilson, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Bryant Prince, Leon Rippy, Stephen Root, Rance Howard, JD Cullum, Saginaw Grant, Mason Elston Cook, Harry Treadaway, James Frain, Joaquin Cosio, Damon Herriman, Freda Foh Shen. Directed by Gore Verbinski

John Reid, the Lone Ranger, has been an iconic American character in nearly every medium that a character can come to life in, be it comic strips, radio, television or the movies. However as Westerns fell out of favor, so too did the masked Texas Ranger who rode his white horse Silver like the wind, accompanied by his faithful Native American sidekick Tonto.

Now Jerry Bruckheimer, Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp who together made the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise the most profitable in Disney history (at least until another couple of Marvel movies and the next Star Wars trilogy fatten their coffers) are back with a reboot of the great American hero. Is the 21st century ready for him?

Reid (Hammer) is an Eastern-educated lawyer returning home to his native Colby, Texas as the county’s new Assistant District Attorney. There he will meet his brother Dan (Dale), a well-respected Texas Ranger who has always overshadowed young John. Dan even got the girl that John wanted, Rebecca (Wilson).

However also on the train west is notorious outlaw Butch Cavendish (Fichtner) who eats human flesh and has a pretty sadistic streak in him – and is on his way to a hanging (his own) – and a Comanche known as Tonto (Depp) who has a dead crow on his head and perhaps a few loose neurons rattling around between his ears. Of course, you just know that Cavendish is going to be broken out of jail or in this case, train. You also know that Reid and Tonto are going to be at odds and not think too terribly high of each other.

Faster than you can say plot complication, John joins his brother Dan on a posse to collect Cavendish so he can be properly hung Texas-style (methinks Rick Perry might be a descendant) and faster than you can say “I saw that coming” the Rangers are massacred by the outlaws and Butch chows down on Dan. John is left for dead.

Tonto wanders upon the scene and buries the dead, including John who, it turns out, isn’t quite dead yet. Tonto identifies him as a spirit walker, one who has come back from the Other Side…and a white spirit horse that John eventually names Silver agrees with him. Silver is probably the smartest character in the movie, possibly in ANY movie. Okay, I made that last part up.

Anyway John has his mad on and he wants to get his hands on Cavendish in the worst way and as it turns out, Tonto has plenty of reason to want to stomp a mudhole in Cavendish as well. However as it turns out Cavendish is working for someone, someone quite powerful who has interest in the Transcontinental Railroad making its way to Utah to be completed. Someone who will change the course of the United States in his greed and lust for power.

This is definitely a much more modern retelling of the tale of the Lone Ranger. While there are elements that tie this film to the illustrious past of the character – the soul-stirring swell of the ”William Tell Overture,” Tonto’s laconic nickname for his partner kemosabe and the silver bullet, this isn’t retro in the least. One element I really like about it is that the story is told by Tonto to a young boy in San Francisco in 1933, some 60 years after the events took place (which if Tonto is Depp’s age in the movie in 1868 makes him a centenarian). This makes it clear from the get-go that this really isn’t John Reid’s story as much as it is Tonto’s and I like the change of viewpoint very much.

The Natives aren’t treated like cannon fodder as they were in most Westerns of the era but are given a surprising amount of respect and deference, although Depp’s Tonto can be Looney Tunes from time to time. That’s a nice touch.

Depp is of course the star and like Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies takes center stage not because of his bravery or heroism but more because of his quirkiness, albeit a different kind of quirky. Think of it as the difference between using peyote and getting rip-roaring drunk on grog. But even the best quirkiness can get a little grating after awhile.

Hammer is an able heroic sort in a gee-whiz kind of way and while on the surface seems well-suited for this sort of role, I don’t think that at the end of the day he’s memorable enough in it. Don’t get me wrong – he does as good a job as you can ask for but his character is made to be an imbecile at times and Hammer is much too intelligent a guy to believe as an idiot for even a second.

There are some fine supporting turns by Carter as a one-legged prostitute and Wilkinson as a railroad baron but they are largely wasted in a movie that is too long in a big way. So much of the middle third is unnecessary and slow that by the time the movie’s climactic scenes roll around you might be checking your watch which is a shame because the action sequences that begin and end the film are spectacular indeed and are worth the price of admission alone.

There are a lot of good ideas in this movie and also a few bad ones. Trimming the movie down to a more manageable two hours might have been more advisable but for whatever reason there is a trend this summer for longer running time which might well thrill consumers who are getting more bang for their buck but has to disappoint exhibitors who have fewer screenings to bring customers into their theaters.

REASONS TO GO: Even Depp’s missteps are entertaining. Some pretty nifty action sequences.

REASONS TO STAY: Way too long. A little silly in places.

FAMILY VALUES:  There are plenty of Western action sequences, some of them intense and some suggestive material.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first version in any medium that the actor playing Tonto gets top billing over the actor playing the Ranger.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/8/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 25% positive reviews. Metacritic: 36/100; it’s pretty obvious the critics hated it.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Rango

FINAL RATING: 7/10

NEXT: The Divide

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a pirate’s life for me!

(2003) Adventure (Disney) Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, Kevin McNally, Mackenzie Crook, Damian O’Hare, Lee Arenberg, Zoe Saldana, Angus Barnett, Giles New, Vanessa Branch Directed by Gore Verbinski

I didn’t do handsprings when Disney said it was making this movie based on its popular ride, which happens to be one of my personal favorites. After all Country Bears left a stench so thick in theaters the year previous that some exhibitors were forced to fumigate.

However, someone at Mouse House got the brilliant idea to turn over the movie to überproducer Jerry Bruckheimer, who in turn had the brilliant idea to hand the directing reins to Gore Verbinski, who directed The Ring and Mouse Hunt but more importantly, was responsible for the invention of the Budweiser Frogs. Finally, Verbinski had the even more brilliant idea of casting Johnny Depp as one of the nefarious pirates. The result is one of the best adventure movies of recent years.

Will Turner (Bloom), an apprentice blacksmith and sword maker in the Caribbean colony of Port Royal, is in love with Elizabeth, the governor’s daughter (Knightley). Her somewhat bumbling father (Pryce) has made a far better match for her, betrothing her to a dashing naval commander (Davenport). Will takes solace in capturing a cunning pirate named Jack Sparrow (Depp), late of the infamous Black Pearl, who is scheming to retake the ship and crew — who left him marooned on an uninhabited isle.

Unlike Gilligan, Sparrow escapes and makes his way to Port Royal, only to be thrown in the hoosegow and sentenced to be hanged. His sentence is interrupted by the Black Pearl itself, with its new commander, the bloodthirsty Barbossa (Rush), which storms Port Royal, wreaking great destruction and mayhem. The plucky Elizabeth is taken, no doubt to be ransomed back to her wealthy father. The British navy makes a cursory search for her, but knows a ransom will have to be paid.

Turner takes matters into his own hands, breaking Sparrow out of jail and enlisting his help save his ladylove. Sparrow is to get his old ship back in the process. Sparrow agrees, and the two sail off headed for the lair of the Black Pearl. To this point, it’s pretty much a routine pirate movie.

Now is where the movie really gets interesting. It turns out that Barbossa and his crew have no intention of ransoming the girl back. They are under a terrible curse, one laid on them by angry Aztec gods for having stolen sacred gold. The crew have become the living dead, whose condition is revealed by moonlight. They are invulnerable and immortal, but unable to partake in the pleasures of the flesh that their wealth would buy them. Desperate to become human again, they need to reassemble the entire Aztec treasure and sacrifice an innocent human to placate the gods.

Elizabeth has the last ingot, and she makes a nifty innocent sacrifice. Turner takes great exception to that plan.

This is the kind of movie for which summers were made. Beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted and a nifty storyline to boot, with plenty of eye candy to satiate even the most jaded moviegoer.

Depp, in particular, is absolutely out of this world. He seems to be half drunk all the time, and all drunk half the time, but his charade of inebriation hides a keen mind and a terrifying tactician. With an airy wave of his hand, Depp tosses off bon mots like Dean Martin, but when the scene calls for swordplay, he is unusually graceful and adept.

Of course, Bloom can handle a sword himself, as he has shown in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He makes a compelling romantic lead, but is simply blown out of the water by Depp. Knightley is lustrous, yet retains enough spunk to make her character interesting. In fact, all of the major and minor characters here are interesting; they seem to fall in the Disney family ethos, but have edges rough enough to make them appealing to a more mature crowd.

Rush is absolutely delicious as a film villain, as he was in Mystery Men. He’s completely terrific here. Verbinski has a wonderful sense of scope, and the look is as epic as any pirate movie from Hollywood’s heyday. He throws in wonderful visuals of cursed pirates that owe only their concepts to the Disney ride, enough so that one can recognize them in the movie, but definitely much farther developed than the more primitive animatronics of the theme park attraction.

Pirate movies haven’t been much in vogue of late, but this one will change all that. This is much fun for the entire family, and a movie you are sure to want to own so you can enjoy the ride over and over again. Michael Jackson must have eaten his own liver back then – he famously constructed a copy of the ride that inspired the movie on his Neverland ranch for quite the pretty penny. He could have waited and bought the DVD instead.

WHY RENT THIS: Depp creates an iconic character. Great story and an awesome curse. Wonderful effects and just enough comic relief to keep the movie balanced without degenerating into parody.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: An unreasonable fear of pirates…

FAMILY MATTERS: There’s a bit of cartoon-ish violence and a few disturbing images that the very small might be frightened by. However for most kids this is pure Disney fun, particularly your overactive little boys.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The ship used to play the HMS Interceptor is a real, working sailing vessel. It is the Lady Washington and serves as the tall ship ambassador for the State of Washington. It was also the same ship used in the holodeck sequence of Star Trek: Generations in the opening sequence where Picard performs the wedding ceremony for Troi and Riker.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO FEATURES: The DVD-ROM feature (remember them) on the original DVD release includes the ability to “pirate” up a personal photo (you can do that now with an app on the average smart phone). There are also production diaries, a blooper reel and a featurette on the Disneyland ride. The featurette on the sequence in which the moonlight first reveals the true aspect of the pirates is superior to others in the same ilk.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $654.3M on a $140M production budget. The movie was an international blockbuster and started up a multi-billion dollar franchise for Disney which is rumored to be actively looking to get a fifth film in the series going as of this writing.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Captain Blood

FINAL RATING: 10/10

NEXT: Beautiful Creatures

Rango

Rango and posse mount some roadrunners in search of Wile E. Coyote.

(2011) Animated Feature (Paramount) Starring the voices of Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Ned Beatty, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Timothy Olyphant, Ray Winstone, Ian Abercrombie, Charles Fleischer, Claudia Black. Directed by Gore Verbinski

We all want to find ourselves. Our entire life journey is all about that – discovering who we are and what we’re meant to be. The journey isn’t always an easy one and the answers are rarely obvious – at first. But the truer we stay to ourselves, the easier the path becomes.

Rango (Depp) is a lizard. No, that’s not quite right – he’s a chameleon, but he’s lived in a terrarium all his life. He wants to be a thespian; not the kind that can get him shot in Arizona. No, the kind that recites Shakespeare and waits tables while they go on auditions. However, his audience is kind of limited, especially with a company that includes a plastic palm tree, a wind-up fish toy and a dead cockroach. Someone really needs to clean out the terrarium.

However, things are about to change. A bump in the road literally finds Rango stranded in the desert. A somewhat squashed armadillo (Molina) steers Rango to a small town named Dirt. A young farmer’s daughter (no cracks!) named Beans (Fisher) rescues Rango and gives him a ride into town. There his tales of heroic acts he never actually did win the admiration of the townies, including a doe-eyed badger named Priscilla (Breslin).

The mayor (Beatty), an aging turtle who might remind older viewers of John Huston’s character in Chinatown and younger ones of Mr. Waternoose in Monsters, Inc. deputizes…um, sheriffizes…oh Hell, anoints Rango Sheriff. He is charged with protecting the town’s most precious asset – water. The town’s supply is dwindling and their longtime source seems to be drying up. When Balthazar (Stanton), a grizzled mole steals the town’s remaining supply, things get ugly in a hurry.

This is one of the most offbeat movies you’re ever likely to see, a wild mash-up of Carlos Castaneda, Hunter S. Thompson, Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone, with a very heavy nod to the desert of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons from Warner Brothers. I’m pretty certain mescaline was involved with the writing of this movie. Then again, Verbinski – auteur of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that also starred Depp, is behind the camera so that explains a lot.

It’s a great looking movie. The desert is bleak and beautiful, stark and hostile. The town is a hodgepodge of found items (a discarded mailbox is the Post Office) that looks familiar and rundown at once. It doesn’t look so much lived in as it does inhabited. The animals are rendered beautifully, anthropomorphic but never cartoonish. Ironically, Rango is the most cartoon-like of all the characters; the rest look like something out of a Salvador Dali painting if Dali had embraced photorealism.

Depp is terrific as the titular character, but then it really isn’t much of a stretch. I thought it brilliant they made him a chameleon who wants to be an actor – how much more ironic can you get than that? Rango is all bluster and bravado but he isn’t really a bad sort; he’s just trying to survive without any real survival skills.

There are some very interesting supporting roles here. Nighy plays Rattlesnake Jake, a mean little sidewinder who carries a Gatling gun on his rattle and may be the most villainous gunslinger ever. There is a late cameo for someone playing the Spirit of the West that’s perfectly done; the person depicted isn’t the actor you actually hear speaking but you’d never know it, but it is so right you instantly smile and nod.

Some parents may be thinking of bringing their kids to see this just because it’s animated and I would urge them strongly to think hard about it. There are some pretty scary moments here, some choice words and it is not as kid-friendly as other animated features are. If your kids are five or six, I’d probably send you over to Mars Needs Moms first; some of the images might give ‘em nightmares. Then again, Mars Needs Moms might give you nightmares.

The story is a bit on the adult side as well, and while some of the characters might well generate some kid-attraction, they are far from cute and cuddly here. In fact, I suspect this movie was geared to adults first and kids second. Too much of the weirdness may go sailing over the heads of the Nickelodeon generation, like the Greek chorus of Mexican mariachis who keep promising that Rango is going to die. If you can’t trust a mariachi, who can you trust?

With animated movies so generally mediocre last year, the first two I’ve seen this year (this one and Gnomeo and Juliet) have been surprisingly good. Both took some chances with their stories and wound up hitting if not home runs, solid ground rule doubles. Rango gets a slight nod because the animation is so much better than the other, but hopefully this is a sign that we might see better overall quality in the animation genre this year.

REASONS TO GO: The animation is simply amazing. The story is a bit more adult than the average animated feature. Anything that has the potential for resurrecting the Western is fine by me.

REASONS TO STAY: Some of the imagery, particularly those centering around Rattlesnake Jack, may be too intense for the little ones.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some disturbing images, some images of smoking, a little bit of action and some crude humor.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The animation was done by noted effects company Industrial Light and Magic – their first animated feature.

HOME OR THEATER: Certainly worth seeing in a theater.

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

TOMORROW: A Map of the World

New Releases for the Week of March 4, 2011

To be…or not to be…

RANGO

(Paramount) Starring the voices of Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abagail Breslin, Ray Winstone, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Beth Grant, Ned Beatty, Harry Dean Stanton, Alfred Molina. Directed by Gore Verbinski

A chameleon with ambitions of becoming an Errol Flynn-like swashbuckling hero moseys into a dusty Western town that is beset by outlaws and other scumbags. He’ll have to become the hero he always dreamed of being in order to save the town and it’s good citizens from lawless animals…literally.

See the trailer, promos, interviews, featurettes and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: PG (for rude humor, language, action and smoking)

The Adjustment Bureau 

(Universal) Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, Terrence Stamp. An ambitious politician running for U.S. Senate meets a beautiful girl who turns his world upside down. There’s just one problem – he’s not supposed to be with her. His fate lies along another pathway – and there are agents of Fate who mean to insure that he takes that pathway, no matter what. He must find a way to do something most men fail to do – evade his own fate – in order to be with the woman he loves.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language, some sexuality and a violent image)

Beastly

(CBS) Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens, Mary-Kate Olsen, Neil Patrick Harris. In this Digital Age retelling of the timeless classic Beauty and the Beast, an arrogant prick of a high school senior gets by on his good looks and wealth until he pisses off the wrong woman – a mystical witch. She curses him with ugliness until he can find someone to fall in love with him as he is – or else stay in this state of hideousness for the rest of his life.

See the trailer, interviews, promos, clips and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Fantasy

Rating: PG-13 (for language including some crude comments, drug references and brief violence)

Cedar Rapids

(Fox Searchlight) Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche. A mild-mannered, naïve insurance agent from a small town ventures to a convention in the titular city, only to be steered into the wild ways of the conventioneer by veterans of the circuit. As his life spins merrily out of control, he begins to discover that perhaps expanding one’s horizons isn’t so bad after all…assuming he survives it. One of the funniest trailers I’ve seen in a long time, by the way – it’s super awesome!

See the trailer, clips and interviews here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for crude and sexual content, language and drug use)

Marwencol

(The Cinema Guild) Mark Hogancamp, Jeff Malmberg. A brutal beating left ex-navy veteran and carpenter Hogancamp unable to speak, walk or eat and most of his memories of his former life gone. While occupational and physical therapy brought him part of the way back, his insurance was cut off, forcing him to rely on alternate means. He builds a World War Two-era Belgian town called Marwencol in his backyard (at 1/6 size) and populates it with G.I. Joes and Barbie dolls, acting out his fantasies and his messages. As the world begins to find the art that Hogancamp creates, he finds it the encroaching fame perhaps the most difficult thing to handle of all.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: NR

Take Me Home Tonight

(Relativity) Topher Grace, Anna Farris, Dan Fogler, Teresa Palmer. A graduate of the MIT class of 1988 drifts aimlessly in Southern California, choosing to work as a clerk in a video store rather than taking a job at some Fortune 500 company to begin that upward path to success. When he is invited to a party by the girl that he had a crush on throughout high school, he means to go and impress her – with nothing really in his arsenal to impress her with. It’s one last chance at redemption, all set to the throbbing New Wave and Hip Hop beat of timeless classics…yes, I’m talking about you, Eddie Money.

See the trailer, interviews, clips and a music video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for language, sexual content and drug use)