"The Lone Ranger" (2013)

Of all the potential adaptable properties out there, the television series The Lone Ranger surely must be one of the least logical, and box-office receipts seemed to confirm this when its film adaptation tanked at the box office. The other reason may have been due to how much of an oddball film Lone Ranger is. Rather than aping the kitsch-ieness or quaintness of its source, Lone Ranger goes for dark, brooding and overblown. There's very little of the lightheartedness that defined the television series -- perhaps due to an assumption this would be too corny or cheesy. Though the film starts with a rather playful, old school pulp serial vibe, it quickly devolves into a sprawling, bloated western epic that draws into question the myths of the western, historically, nationally and cinematically.

The film shares a lot of qualities with director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer's efforts on The Pirates of the Caribbean. Most apparently, Johnny Depp returns for another eccentric, garishly-garbed supporting role that, for better and for worse, ends up stealing the spotlight. Depp plays Tonto, the Native American who plays stone-faced companion and frenemy to Armie Hammer's Lone Ranger, a lawyer forced to turn vigilante when his brother and posse are viciously murdered by bandits. Ranger features the Pirate series' expansive sweep, and pyrotechnic, overwrought action and storytelling.

It's ultimately the self-involved, exceedingly complicated and overdrawn narrative which brings Ranger crashing to a screeching halt. The film tells its story in sputtering fragments of clashing tonalities -- silly slapstick is closely followed on the heels of tremendous violence -- and intentions. It's consistently an overlong slog to get through with the film never truly picking up momentum.

The film's haltering pacing also is, in part, due to weird thematic ambitions. The film boils down to a massive indictment of the skeletons in America's closet, in particular the genocide of the Native Americans and the nation's failure to fully atone for its past sins. The film questions the myths the country was founded upon and how we collectively and actively write these myths at the expense of historical truth.

Though the film does manage to use its scope and its excess for some lively action sequences, they come far and few between in a story that's often tedious to get through due to how uncertainly and unevenly told it is.

 Grade: ★★