jul 3, 2013 - VULTURE Edelstein on TLR: An Uncomfortable Mix of Silliness and Sadism

Description:

It’s way too long (almost two and a half hours), repetitive, and mostly unfunny, and its dependence on computer-generated imagery makes it feel almost 100 percent synthetic. But that’s not the really bad part of the $200 million comic Western The Lone Ranger. The latest Johnny Depp brainstorm —likely conceived on a hammock on his private island — is appalling in ways that you could never have anticipated. The movie mixes mismatched-buddy high jinks with scenes of carnage. In one scene, Native Americans are shot down by the U.S. cavalry on behalf of rapacious capitalist imperialists. Then it’s back to more Butch-and-Sundance antics, more pratfalls. I’m sure Depp and director Gore Verbinski didn’t mean it to come out this way, but the combination of liberal politics and Pirates of the Caribbean slapstick spectacle plays like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee reconceived as a Disney theme-park ride.

SOURCE:
US VA Amber Heard Exhibit 9 - Article JRE - "Edelstein on The Lone Ranger: An
Uncomfortable Mix of Silliness and Sadism," 7/3/13

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