Presumably spurred on by the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (which raked in billions, despite the fact that there's only one good movie in the whole bunch), Disney gave director Gore Verbinski and star Johnny Depp permission to try and breathe life into another seemingly "dead" genre. Could The Lone Ranger do for the western what Pirates of the Caribbean did for pirate flicks? Don't bother with the drum roll: the answer is a resounding "no." Who's to blame for this insanely expensive, CGI-heavy action blockbuster flop, then? It'd be easy to pin the blame on Armie Hammer, whose turn as the Lone Ranger himself was competent but far from special. To blame Hammer would be ridiculous, of course, given that this is all Disney's burden to bear: if John Carter was to be a lesson in restraint, Ranger proves that putting Johnny Depp into something doesn't make automatically make it good. A big bloated mess, we say.
