The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger – 149m – Pg-13

This movie is the personification of a red light film. This is another churn and burn action movie that has potential as a story but instead of actually doing anything with it, they took Pirates of the Caribbean and moved it to the desert. This movie was poorly constructed, insulting and miles away from what the Disney brand name represents as a standard in family entertainment.

I have so many problems with this movie the spoiler section is going to encompass most of this review so I am going to not do a spoiler section for this review. I am going to talk about spoilers throughout this review. You have been warned!!!!!

This movie is told from Tonto’s (Johnny Depp) point of view to a young man (Mason Cook) who has paid to see a Wild West exhibit. Tonto explains the events that lead John Reid (Armie Hammer) to become a masked ranger to protect his loved ones and bring justice to a wild and unruly west.

This movie is an excellent example of what is wrong with our copyright system. It seems to me that the rights to the Lone Ranger were almost up so Disney had push anything out to keep control over this property. I have no problem with using the properties if you have an actual use for it, but I disapprove of putting something out just to keep it yours. Let someone who loves this story and might be able to tell a better story take it from there OR get those people involved in the project from the beginning and keep the copyright alive with a quality product.

I am a Native American. I am a member of the Hoopa tribe by blood. I sometimes joke about being offended at some things that are misrepresenting Native Americans in pop culture and entertainment. This time I AM offended.

When I heard that Tonto was going to be a major part in the movie I thought “alright. Hollywood is expanding the character and making some changes to recognize some of the wrongs that it has done to the Native Americans in the past.” Mmm not so much. To play this newly envisioned role they cast Johnny Depp -- who is an excellent actor, and might even have some Native American ancestry in his family tree. However, there are many actual Native American actors who could have done just as well. Off the top of my head some of them are Adam Beach, Rodney A. Grant, and Eddie Spears.

I could see all of them filling the shoes of Jay Silverheels who defined the role in the television series. The only real natives in the film are again resigned to set dressing and stereotypical roles.

Poor casting choices were only a small portion of the problems with Tonto. Our first images of him are as a stuffed Indian in an exhibit called The Noble Savage in his Natural Habitat. He is not stuffed he is just a really old man standing around waiting for people to look at him. I felt bad they brought the character down to a side show oddity.

I know that Native Americans joined traveling wild west shows but it would have been better to have Tonto sitting at the door inside the exhibit hall like an employee of the establishment or a tour guide. It would have been more respectful to the character to have the kid and Tonto travel down memory lane in that context.

At least that’s as bad as it… No, wait it gets worse. Tonto is a severely damaged character because of a tragedy in his past that resulted in the loss of his village. He showed some white men a big vein of silver and they repayed him by giving him a watch for the journey and killing his village to keep the find secret. He returns to see everyone including his pet raven dead. He has vowed to find the people who did this and kill them. On the surface, this is not that bad but on this crazy journey he wears the dead bird on his head and talks and feeds it constantly throughout the film. It becomes a running joke about him feeding this dead bird on his head.

The revenge portions of his character or making him tortured are fine but why make him barking moonbat crazy? He came off as an escaped cast member of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. If the director (Gore Verbinski) was using this to give Tonto an edge so that people would not pay attention to him, he wasted his time. Tonto was already invisible. He was an Indian -- people of that time underestimated them and counted them just above dumb animals.

The end of the movie has Tonto walking into the desert mural almost a “Being There” moment where we are supposed to be dumbfounded at what we just saw. Then we get the credits rolling as we watch Johnny Depp doing his 1000 year old man impression off into the sunset. I get that they were trying to make Tonto a spiritual figure one that embodied the west but that idea flew about as well as the dead bird on his head.

To the filmmakers credit they did at least get an actual member of the Comanche tribe to come in and consult on the props, costumes and even helped coach Johnny Depp with the language. He should have been asked to look at the script.

The rest of the cast did well with the roles and there was nothing outstanding about them, they fit the bill for this type of film.

I do have a problem with the level of viciousness of bad guy. If this were a movie with a different production company name I would have no problem with the level of violence perpetrated by the bad guy. This however was a Disney brand movie. The Disney brand is synonymous with Family Entertainment, and having a character cut out a person’s heart and eat it on screen is anything but family entertainment.

This level of violence isn't uncalled for by this character. Disney movies have always had brutal content, but we have never seen it happen on screen. We don’t actual see him eat the heart it but we do see it from behind and in the reflection of John’s eye. I am wondering if there are plans for a Lone Ranger ride at the parks now. Do we get to see an animatronic Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) eating harts and covered in blood as kids ride by?

The Brothel scene was stretching it a bit. It’s perfect for the setting and it needs to be a part of a movie that is set in this timeframe but again the Disney brand implies certain standard of what you can expect to see. I look back at the other pirates movies and see where the standards have slipped ever so slowly down to the point where the production company doesn’t even blink an eye at this. Walt Disney is rolling over in his Cryo Tube.

They should make a separate production company for these kind of films to preserve the image of family entertainment associated with Disney. I just have a problem with the Disney name being directly associated with this film.

Did you see it and how do you feel? Am I off the mark? Should we get together and tell Disney we want our childhoods back?

World War Z

World War Z – 116M – PG-13

This movie has the following things in common with the book of the same name; zombies annnd The title annnnnnnd that’s it. There are almost no other carryovers that make this a good representation of the book. Once you get past the huge differences and just grade this on its own zombie merits, at best it only gets a yellow light from me.

I was a fan of zombies from the first time I watched the 1968 version of Night of the Living Dead. Maybe I am harder on this type of movie and hold it to a higher standard because I love the genre. The movie was fine from your run of the mill modern zombie that is crazy fast and completely unstoppable. But I am finding myself missing the psychological horror of the original movies.

Brad Pitt is Gerry Lane, a UN troubleshooter that has a way of getting things done in some very politically tight spots. He has a reputation of being relentless and letting nothing get in his way. He has just retired and is spending more time at home with his wife, Karin (Mireille Enos), and his two daughters, Constance and Rachel (Sterling Jerins, Abigail Hargrove). He is on a day out with the fam when the world explodes with an unstoppable wave of zombies.

There are very few relief points in the action. You get a never-ending ride of ups and downs while you are forced fed clues that are used in the end to come up with a solution of how to combat the zombies. I am guessing they are heavy handed because Brad Pitt needs to be able to see them.

I’m sorry about that last line, it was offsides, Brad Pitt is a very talented actor and a great person. That cheap shot was petty and uncalled for. I retract it. I was aiming more at the filmmakers. He was collateral damage in that jibe. I get cranky when I have to write about a movie that did not have enough good or bad in it to make me feel one way or the other.

I did like many of the small things they did to enhance the tension and imminent danger in this version of the zombie mythos. But adding cool small nuances to the overall tired big blockbuster story machine is not enough to keep me interested.

A missing element to the movie was how humanity changed and evolved overall in response to the crisis. We never get to see this in the film because instead of being a story about all of us, it’s just one man’s story. The book was told from several points of view. Maybe they should have thought of doing a Contagion approach in telling this story.

The CGI zeds were good at times and at times they were a bit grainy. Perhaps the director (Marc Forster) was going for that look, they wanted to give that effect to be like the shaky camera shots and bring you into the story, but it was distracting. I am a fan of his other films but this one I think is going to the bottom of my favorites from him.

I have issue with the ultra fast and super human zombie. Simon Pegg wrote an article about this very subject he said:

       “the fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.“

The rest of the article is here. This is said much more elegant than I could but it is exactly how I feel.

Warning Spoilers !!!!! Only the Uninfected beyond this point. !!!!!!!!!!!

Ok. Right off the bat I thought the world’s smartest and best hope for humanity shooting his face off as soon as he gets face to face with danger (pun intended) was priceless. My exact words were “Wellllllllll, poop. We’re Stewed” I am cleaning this up for some of our younger readers but you get the idea.

From there few minutes of conversation on the plane we are supposed to believe that Brad Pitt’s character can piece together a plan about a vaccine that can make us invisible to them? Again this is hard for me to get behind.

The solution they came up with of making us not a compatible host seems a bit sketchy when they were pretty clearly killing everything that moved in the opening scenes I know I am watching a zombie movie so my suspension of disbelief should be pretty high, but it was hard to take in with such a farfetched premise.

Also the level of contagion seemed disproportionate. There is a news report of someplace incanting martial law but the news report makes the outbreak seem miles away. When the action kicks off it’s just in your face waves of sprinting zombies.

I loved the little touches of zombie prep, wrapping the arm in magazines and duct tape. Stand on the edge of the building as a safety measure if he turned. Walking back through the zombies and taking a soda when he created the distraction was a nice touch.

I was a bit disappointed by the fact that the sound of people singing were enough to bring the zombies to scale the wall but the other noise of helicopters and trucks and security gates and other conversations and yelling orders did nothing to inspire them to attack.

Ok enough about this blah zombie movie I am going to attack digital zombies as I go play State of Decay. I can show you how a real survivor is supposed to act.

What is your favorite zombie and why? Shamblers or rage machines?

Man of Steel

Man of Steel - 143min - PG13

I am doing this on my iPad as I am on holiday in London so bear with me if this looks odd. Memo to me: pack laptop for out of town trips. My first impression with this movie is how well they did an origin story without having us go through a long rehash of how Superman became Superman. The fresh start was needed after the last love letter of a movie - Superman Returns - that tried to recapture the magic of what the original move had while trying to update the character for a modern audience. This move gets a green light from me but it does have a few missed opportunities that I think they could have capitalized on.

This version of the story has Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) going from one job to another helping people as an anonymous drifter. He is trying to figure out who he is in our world. We see his childhood in flashback and most of the history we already know. This gives the director (Zack Snyder) the ability to only show us the pivotal moments in Clak's life without us having to trudge through all of his childhood. The way he mixed the timelines gives us what we need to continue to the good bits of the story.

Kevin Costner plays Jonathan Kent perfectly. He brings an honest concern for his adoptive son that I don't think was captured in previous versions. His fear of how the world will react to finding out his son is from a different planet is genuine and you can see how his lessons of character and responsibility shaped Clark's life. Ma Kent (Diane Lane) was wonderful and helped bring the emotional connection to the screen. She was not a frail motherly woman. She was a more modern country strong woman and seemed younger or maybe I am getting older and she just seems younger. She brought a life to the character that was more than set dressing of the mother figure.

Lois Lane (Amy Adams) seems more on the ball than previous actresses that have had the role. Her strength was seen in this movie as she was actually fighting opposed to just being a damsel in distress. That was a refreshing twist. Her journalistic curiosity brought her to a story and the scope of it brought the danger. She has captured the embedded journalist spirit that understands the danger but still pushes to get to the story. I never liked the "I am going to break the law to get a good story and oops I get caught" aspect of her character in previous versions.

The choice to cast Laurence Fishburn as Perry White was excellent. I remember people on the Internet up in arms as to why are we crossing race here in the comic book he is white. It made absolutely no difference and having a strong actor play a supporting cast member brought new depth to this character. His performance made me want to see more from his character. This team again elevating Perry from set dressing to interesting character.

The pacing was excellent, the action was extreme and the carnage was on a massive scale. The aftermath of gods playing in a sandbox reminded me of pictures of Hiroshima after the blast. It will take years for Metropolis to rebuild. I must be getting old because I was horrified by the extreme loss of life. The death toll after the fight has to be in the millions. But they only showed glimpses of death, this is still only a small consolation when you see bodies being tossed in the air and brought down with a huge wave of gravity crushing everything in its path.

I think this is a great kick off to a Justice League movie. I know that project is up in the air but I think that if they keep Christopher Nolan and his team doing the same quality storytelling it would be a great world to set that film in. It's darker and more visceral than the polished settings in the past. But they need to just do a Justice League movie and then go back to individual films later. But what do I know? I am just a fan boy blogger.

Spoiler warning !!!! Only sons and daughters of Krypton beyond this point!!!!

I think the first missed opportunity was not using Clark's mind or his experience on the farm shine through in the fight with General Zod (Michael Shannon) we see Clark reading a book when he was picked on by the jocks, so he is smart or at least it was implied that he was. Let’s see how brains win over brawn even if he has superpowers it should be the way he uses it to overcome that mattered.

The second place was not using Zod's death to shape Superman more, something in the scenes that explained that because he had to kill Zod with his bare hands he was no longer going to use lethal force. A conversation with his mom or with Lois. Something. Anything to give more meaning to his taking a life.

My wife pointed out that this, like most other movies gets the basic reality of the planet wrong. It’s not daylight on both sides of the world at once. You can't have a daylight shot of Metropolis and of its polar opposite on the other side of the globe.


What superhero should this team take on next?

After Earth

After Earth - 89min – PG-13

This is the latest film from M. Night Shyamalan. I know, I know, many of you groan when you hear he is making more movies. I am a fan and I have not been quiet about my appreciation for him as a filmmaker. I truly enjoy the stories that he tells and his eye for shot composure is wonderful. I even like his signature movie of filming a character in reflection. He has a reputation of providing a hook with the movies but I have learned to not look for the hook just watch and enjoy the ride. It’s a bit like when you watching a magic trick and trying to figure out how the trick was done, you miss out on the show. He has seemed to be out of the hook phase and is now focusing on just telling straight forward stories. This movie is a green light from me, and no, not just because it was from Mr. Shyamalan…ok, maybe a little bit.

Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his son, Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith), crash land on planet Earth, but the Earth has been evacuated for a millennium. The planet has become a very hostile place. Kitai has to traverse the landscape and get to a distress beacon located a few days journey through this harsh environment alone to save himself and his injured father.

This was a good adventure story with an undercurrent of relationship dynamics that play well in the development of the characters. The father and son are not close as Cypher is a typical military father who is distant and shows almost no emotion. I think this was a good stretch for Will Smith as he usually plays very passionate and animated characters. I like it when an actor breaks out of type and takes risks with different characters.

Jaden is growing as an actor, this role has a lot more emotional baggage to deal with than his previous roles but I think he did well. A friend of mine once said he has talent but needs more craft. This was primarily Jaden’s movie. His father was an important role but all eyes are on Jaden to carry this film.

As I understand it Will Smith wanted to do a movie about a father and son stranded in the forest and brought it to Gary Whitta and they transformed it into a stranded on Earth in the far future. Gary Whitta has my attention because I have enjoyed almost all of his work. He also wrote the Book of Eli and an episode of the video game version of The Walking Dead. I am going to have to look at Prey -- the other game he worked on.

Warning Spoilers !!!!! Only Rangers beyond this point!!!!!

Kitai’s internal conflict stems from his attempts at impressing his father. He tries to become a ranger but has personal emotional demons that hold him back. His sister, Senshi (Zoe Kravitz), was a ranger and died saving his life from the hostile alien life form known as Ursa who can smell fear. Her performance was short but very well done. Her connection to her father was very present in the few scenes she was in.

I thought the movie was a bit heavy-handed in its environmental message. You can set the same stage by saying something as simple as The Earth was used up and unable to support human life. I know this is a rip off of Firefly but it is an excellent example of how you can express something without being preachy.

As preachy as the message was, they did follow through on the making that fact a big part of how the technology was made, it seems very organic and it blended well between the leather look of the uniform and the how technology blended in with it. I liked how it changed colors to fit the need of the wearer, white for illness of physical problem, and black when danger was near. Ooh wait! It was peril sensitive overalls.


Do you think the movie was overly complicated in its concept or were you ok with how it was presented?

-By the by
I am back to regular writing I might catch up on the ones I missed but I am going to focus on movies I see going forward.