The Lone Ranger

ACTION/ADVENTURE

Riding for Justice

8.5 out of 10 | Movie or DVD

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Rated: PG-13 Sequences of intense action and violence, and some suggestive material
Release Date: July 3, 2013
Runtime: 2 hours 29 minutes

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Director: Gore Verbinski
Writers: Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Cast: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Helena Bonham Carter, Barry Pepper, Willam Fichtner, James Badge Dale, Ruth Wilson, Tom Wilkinson, Harry Treadaway, Lew Temple

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SYNOPSIS:  Native American warrior Tonto recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid, a man of the law, into a legend of justice.

REVIEW: Director Gore Verbinski became a hard-to-pronounce household name after the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. He returns for a much dryer film, trading the vast allure of the oceans for the plains and deserts of Colby, Texas. The retelling of the Lone Ranger is scribed by Justin Haythe (Snitch), and Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (The Pirates of the Caribbean series), galloping in a different direction for an American born western legend.

John Reid (Armie Hammer, Mirror, Mirror) travels to Colby, Texas as the new county prosecutor. On his train is Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner, Date Night), a wanted Indian hunter who is shackled and being returned to Colby to stand trial. Also in shackles is a Comanche Indian named Tonto (Johnny Depp, Dark Shadows). After Cavendish's gang breaks him out of the train's stock car, Reid and Tonto are thrown together until Reid puts him behind bars in his brother Dan's (James Badge Dale, World War Z) jail. When Dan, John, and six other Texas rangers ride off in pursuit of the escaped Cavindish and his men, an ambush sets Reid onto in a spirit course to Tonto. Both looking for justice - Reid for his brother's murder and Tonto for wrongs from his past - Reid dons a mask as the Lone Ranger to pursue and hunt down Cavindish. What they don't realize is that Cavindish is not the only snake in the hot desert to deal with?

The creative team that created The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise return to rewrite the exploits of one of America's most famous masked cowboys. Spanning decades since its inception, the stories of the Lone Ranger have delighted audiences on radio shows, movie serials, comics, novels, television series and feature films. If you were a young boy of the 40s or 50s, you more than likely donned the black mask of this protector of the innocent. But who is that masked man?

Armie Hammer plays the Lone Ranger as a reluctant hero, a pacifist more comfortable with words than with a six shooter. Swearing justice for his brother, Hammer's Ranger is still willing to let Justice carry the day. It's not until the plot thickens and his brother's wife Rebecca (Ruth Wilson, Anna Karenina) and son Danny (Bryant Prince) are in peril that he dons the black mask for justice and vengeance. Johnny Depp, to his typical method, takes Tonto in a different direction that the familiar faithful servant and companion of the Lone Ranger in the character's previous incarnations. He is a half crazed Comanche outcast more willing to speak to white spirit horses and feed a dead raven on the top of his head then to other people. Even his own tribe has turned their back on him and his obsessive pursuits. The threats that both Reid and Tonto face comes in the form of William Fichtner's Butch Cavendish, a hair lipped and scarred brute who has no qualms about cutting a man's heart out and eating it. Even his own outlaw gang shows him a healthy amount of fear and respect. Tom Wilkinson (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol) plays Latham Cole, a man who is an employee of the transcontinental railroad and who does whatever he needs to do to get his company's railroad connected to the West Coast in time. Barry Pepper returns from Snitch as Captain Jay Fuller, a Cavarly commander who may have decimated a native tribe for the wrong reasons, and Helena Bonham Carter (Les Misérables) plays the madame of prostitutes who has her own reasons to hate Cavindish. Harry Treadaway (Cockneys vs Zombies) makes an impression as Frank, one of Cavindish's outlaws.

Like with tPotC, Verbinski makes the Lone Ranger into an epic size action-packed Western – untethered by the constraints of practical stunts and squib bursting saloon gunfights. There is plenty of six shooting and repeating rifle battles, and horse chases, and train robberies, but the director uses a lot of CGI to oversize the thrills. Some of the effects are derivatives of Buster Keaton, but other effects are not as seamless as they could have been. From buffaloes to some sequences of the trains, the effects could have been better if they could have used the real thing. I know that is a tall order – especially with the cost of filmmaking – but sometimes the old ways are still the best.

The Lone Ranger is a great reimagining of a classic western hero. It is fun and as over-the-top as it should be for a summertime flick. Depp does a great job as comic relief in the form of the off-center Tonto and Armie Hammer does justice as the blond haired and blue righteous law keeper. Some of the story is true to the genre, becoming predictable for any fans who has watched AMC's Hell on Wheels or Two Mules for Sister Sarah, but it all works out as a fun and enjoyable ride.

"If we ride together, we ride for justice". That line was spoken by the Lone Ranger to Tonto. With a Hi-Ho Silver, Away, the Lone Ranger's white hat and black mask may be just what the summer needs.

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Dark Shadows (2012)

Blood is Thicker than Water

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Rated: PG-13  Language, comic horror violence, sexual content, smoking and some drug use
Release Date: May 11, 2012
Runtime:  1 hr 53 mins

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Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Seth Grahame-Smith, John August, based on the television series created by Dan Curtis
Cast: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Johnny Lee Miller, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Lee, Alice Cooper

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SYNOPSIS: Barnabas Collins rejects the love of a servant girl witch, resulting in the loss of his parents, his estate, his true love and his mortality. 200 years later the now vampiric Collins escapes a steel coffin tomb to return to the homestead he remembered, still plagued by the curse that affects him and his descendant family.

REVIEW: Tim Burton, director of Alice in Wonderland and Edward Scissorhands, returns with his go to lead actor Johnny Depp for another look at the bizarre and somewhat revolutionary late 1960s supernatural soap serial melodrama Dark Shadows. With its unique blend of Gothic mystery, romance and grim melodrama, the original Dark Shadows became one of the first 'must see' television series, causing many kids and adults to race home to see each episode in an era before DVRs or VCRs. Now, adding their own unique visions, Depp and Burton take a quirky and funny look at the source material that became a cult classic for a generation.

In 1750, Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp, Alice in Wonderland) and his parents moved from Liverpool, England to the wilds of America's Maine coast. Using their know how to build a fishing port, Barnabas' father and mother creates the town of Collinsport and amassed prosperity and wealth for the town and for themselves. As a young adult, Barnabas makes the mistake of spurning the lustful advances of servant girl Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green, The Golden Compass) in favor of his true love Josette DuPres (Bella Heathcote, In Time). Unwilling to relent, the witch Bouchard curses Barnabas in a way that forces Josette to hurl herself to her death from the top of Widow's Peak. Barnabas follows after her, only to discover that he cannot die and has turned into a vampire. Trapped within a iron coffin, Bouchard buries Barnabas to rot in the ground. Nearly 200 years later, in 1972, Barnabas is accidentally released from his claustrophobic confines by construction workers. He finds himself as a strange monster in a strange new world, finally returning to the familiar surroundings of his ancestral estate, Collinwood. Barnabas finds the estate in ruin and the last remaining Collin clan a dysfunctional mess. The dusty and cracking Collinwood remains home to enduring family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer, New Year's Eve), her budding rebellious daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz, Hugo), Elizabeth's scheming brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller, Endgame), Roger's 10-year-old son David (Gully McGrath, Hugo), a live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech), the long suffering caretaker of Collinwood Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley, Shutter Island), and David's new governess Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote). Realizing that Barnabas has returned from the grave, literally, the still powerful and now fish cannery successful Angelica turns her seductive charms toward the vampire in an attempt to win his love. Conversely, Barnabas looks to return his family's business, fortune, and family honor, as well as woo Victoria as she reminds him of his lost Josette.

From the start, Burton, his writers Seth Grahame-Smith (the upcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and John August (Corpse Bride), and Johnny Depp intended for their version of Dark Shadows to stray a little from the soap opera without sacrificing what the original material included. Still haunting the shores of Collinwood are vampires, ghosts, witches, and a community with its share of deep, dark dramatic secrets. What sets these summer's film apart is the additional sense of whimsy and fun. While Johnny Depp channels Jonathan Frid's always iconic performances of the protagonist blood sucker, Depp added in his own flare of "flowery language" and "vocal style" to the role. As an England-born man who is turned into a vampire and immediately set into a buried grave for 200 years Barnabas finds absurdity all around him as he prowls the streets before returning home to Collinwood. And while he finds strangeness in his surroundings, his new found Collins family finds strangeness in him and his mannerisms, most notably young Carolyn who finds him "weird". While Dark Shadows is not as campy as portrayed in the trailers, the film still lightens itself out the surreal, grim world from which it sprung.

In Dark Shadows, Collinwood is as if it is a character all on its own. Production designer Rick Heinrichs from Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow creates an elaborate and beautiful estate for the Collin characters to interact with. Costume designer Colleen Atwood from Burton's Alice In Wonderland takes a break from the the outlandish regalia of the patron beyond the looking glass to create detailed costumes and capes for Barnabas that are both fresh and familiar. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, under the guidance of Burton, creates a style and look that hearkens back to an earlier era. When Victoria Winters disembarks from the train in Collinsport, and when she first walks up the drive at Collinwood, the faded soft film and the sharp, obtuse angles is reminiscent of many shots from early seventies horror and dramatic films. And Burton retains some classic soap operatic style by framing camera shots in many scenes with Barnabas and Elizabeth delivering their dialogue faced fully and dramatically away from the other.

The look of the film transported me back to the days of miniskirts and free love. The score and song choices of longtime Burton collaborator and composer Danny Elfman did the same. From the always haunting Moody Blues "Nights in White Satin" that starts off the title sequence, to a dinner accompanying Donovan classic "Season of the Witch," to Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly," Elfman's choices epitomize the tone of the film throughout.

Johnny Depp is, well, Johnny Depp! Every role he takes on is an entertaining adventure to watch. With several pale skinned characters to his credit, he does tweak his portrayal of Barnabas Collins enough to make the part feel original and set it apart from the likes of the Mad Hatter and Edward Scissorhands. Captain Jack Sparrow does bubble under the surface a bit with Depp's use of an English accent, albeit, a clear voice you can understand. Pfieffer is radiant, strong and proud in her role as Elizabeth Collins. Chloe Grace Moretz, one of my favorite young actresses, channels in perfect pitch the troubled, angst-ridden teenager that just wants to come of age and move to New York to live life on her own term. Jackie Earle Haley, a versatile performer, takes on the drunkard curmudgeon of Willie Loomis with relish. The witch of the hour, Eva Green's Angelique, is a beautiful porcelain facade that provides a shell for a lustful emptiness that twists into a devoted vengeance against Barnabas. Helena Bonham Carter's Dr. Hoffman is a sassy, alcoholic psychiatrist fascinated by Barnabas and worried about her own mortality. And Bella Heathcote plays her duel roles of the 18th Century Josette and the haunted nanny trying to escape her past and find a place to belong with equal grace.

Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and the rest of the cast deliver a quirky and fun version of the cult classic long-running soap serial melodrama that had people of the day rushing home to watch each episode - years before Lost ever hit the airwaves. If you like Burton and Depp, then you would be remiss in passing on this new Dark Shadows. Clever, 70s cool, lightly dramatic with a touch of whimsy, Dark Shadows will entertain even if Barnabas's hypnotic gaze does not enthrall.

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WORTH:  Matinee or DVD

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

End of a Wild Wizarding Ride

Director: David Yates
Writers: Steve Kloves, J.K. Rowling
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Jason Isaacs, Tom Felton, Bonnie Wright

SYNOPSIS: Harry, Ronald and Hermione continue their quest to find and destroy Lord Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes, culminating in an epic battle between good and evil, and between He Who Should Not Be Named and The Boy Who Lived.

REVIEW: Ten years, eight films, seven books, five directors and one amazing author have brought us a literary phenomenon, a $6 billion plus movie franchise, and an epic story of three wizarding friends that changed the landscape of both print and cinema. Launching a dozen or more other children's novel film franchise hopefuls including The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, the Harry Potter series remains at the top of the food chain. A generation of children and adults have grown to love the action, adventure and spell-binding charms of a boy with a lightning bolt scar and possibly the Chosen One against the darkest of the dark arts.

David Yates, director of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, takes a treatment from J.K. Rowling's trusted adaptation scribe Steve Kloves (except Order of the Phoenix), and brings the road trip home in time for the ultimate battle between the forces of good and darkness.

Where Part 1 was a epic road trip, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is a epic war film. An amalgam of Star Wars and Saving Private Ryan - and the culmination of the Potter films that preceded it - this Deathly Hallows is filled with vast slow-motion battles, a variety of creatures, good and evil wizards, and our trio of teenage "Year 7" heroes. Veiled in deep dark tones, and seeped with swirling dust and rubble, Part 2's gritty portrayal of the end of Hogswart's and the spellcasters that oppose Voldemort is both sad, despairing - with a glimmer of hope and perseverance. How can anyone stand up to the tide of darkness that He Who Should Not Be Named leads?

Remember how you felt when Luke finally faced Darth Vader in the third act of The Empire Strikes Back for their lightsaber battle? When Lord Vordemort and the Elder Wand faces off against Harry and the weapon he disarmed from Draco in Part 1, we bear witness to a magical duel we have never seen before and have been waiting for eight films. In a word, brilliant!

I need not explain the story to the readers and viewers since the majority of the planet have read the entire series of novels. That been said, the same fans who will cheer at Neville Longbottom and Professor McGonagall, avid fans will complain about some of the omissions from the source material or scene edits that seem to expect the moviegoer to know the background of the film they are watching. How does Hagrid end up at the end of ropes, captured by the Deatheaters? Some scenes are kept in because the readers would have been horrified if they were cut, but the loss and triumphs of the Weasley family during the final battles seemed more like background noise instead of center pieces.

Once the dust settled and the smoke clears you will be happy to be able to tell people you witnessed the end, but will be immediately sad that the franchise is over. All we can hope for is for Rowling to start writing or releasing the "lost" stories of Harry Potter and his friends, so we can renew our adventures in the magical and wizarding world of the Hogwart's universe.

WORTH: Friday Night Opening and BluRay

The King's Speech

Words Worth Hearing

[Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Geoffrey Rush, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall]

RANT: It happened! I am off from work this week, and decided to get to the theater for the newly expanded The King's Speech. I went to the gym first, though, thinking I would have plenty of time. Unfortunately, I was late to the box office, then stood in line for 15 minutes to up-size my $1 small popcorn coupon for $1 small popcorn Tuesdays. So if my review is incomplete, it is because I missed the first 3 minutes of the film!

SYNOPSIS: The story of King George VI of Britain, his struggles with a speech stammer, his unlikely ascension to the throne on the eve of the Second World War, and his work and relationship with a dedicated speech therapist.

REVIEW: Directed by Tom Hooper by a screenplay by David Seidler, The King's Speech focuses on the future King of Britain, Albert Frederick Arthur George. As the second son of King George V, Albert, or "Bertie" to his family, grew up within the shadow of his older brother Edward, the heir to the Throne. But the story is as much about the man as it is about the monarch. Raised as royalty did little to help Albert's confidence or lessen his stuttering in private or in public.

From the onset, this film is completely Colin Firth's movie. Watching him fill the shoes of the soon-to-be monarch was captivating. I felt the physical and psychological pains of the affliction of Albert's stammer and stuttering, never feeling that Albert's speech defects were put on. It was as if Firth had firsthand understanding of the difficulties of the impediment itself. Also, Firth's portrayal of King George VI and his frustrations of his unexpected rise in station simply add to the pressure that causes his speaking issues to become worse.

Tasked to help Albert with his speech defects after failed attempts by premiere therapists, Lionel Logue, played expertly and subtlety by Geoffrey Rush, tries to dig deeper into the psyche of the man who would be king. Helena Bonham Carter, as Albert's wife, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, epitomizes the grace and manner that any future queen should have - always stalwart in support of her husband and his duties. Guy Pearce portrays Albert's brother, Edward - a man who is both popular to the people of Britain and irresponsible to the throne and its duty. Even Timothy Spall, the man better known for his role as Wormtail in the Harry Potter films, brought an interesting and appealing take on British statesman and prime minister Winston Churchill.

The acting is superb. The scenery is both architecturally rich in the tradition of the British Empire, but also weathered and crumbling as historically the Empire became after the end of World War II. The film denotes the pomp of royalty and the circumstances of the everyman. King George VI and Lionel Logue are the opposite sides of separate coins, but provide plenty enough for admission.

Worth: Matinee and DVD

Alice In Wonderland

Curiouser and Curiouser

[Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway]

If you remember my review of "Shutter Island", I may have let you know that if you were a Scoreses fan, that film was not your typical fare from that director. Of course, the same does not apply to Tim Burton films. If you are a fan, then, by all means, go see his latest work.

SYNOPSIS:  Alice has grown up with nightmares of a place with talking animals, queens and edibles that allow you to become big or small. Now a young adult on the day of a lord's proposal to her, she runs away after a waist-coated rabbit, falling through the rabbit hole and into Underland. 

With all of the new tricks of movie-making at his disposal, Tim adds his Burtonesque touches to the classic Lewis Carroll tales of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". These stories have been made many times, into movies, spin-off books, comics, Sci-Fi Originals, and more. There is a blend to the film that takes the groundwork of Carroll and adds additional character development and some of the new ideas already seen in more recent tellings of the Alice story.

I have always been partial to Norman McLeod's 1933 version of the story. As a child on a late Saturday morning, I watched the black and white Alice wander through a grotesque, magical land, transfixed by the sheer lunacy of it all. I gather watching this film as a 7-year old would be the equivalent of being stoned as a teenager. I only have the former as a tangible gage, of course. Burton's version, though, is more spectacle than substance (or substance abuse). 

As he does so well in all of work, Tim Burton does not disappoint our optic sense. He is no stranger to strange environments, from "Edward Scissorhands" to "Sleepy Hollow" to "The Corpse Bride". His latest film is in gorgeous color, the human characters in realistic anatomical distortion, the animal characters stylized to the point of absurdity. All of these traits are perfect, especially if you are adapting a Wonderland story. But as the 1933 film captured my imagination as a child, the 2010 version can only warmed me as simple entertainment. I am definitely not jaded (see exhibit A for "Avatar") and am not trying to lessen the depth of what Burton has brought to the screen, but I think Burton's dementia may be becoming too mainstream.

Speaking of mainstream, that can especially be said for Johnny Depp. Once the source of much worry by studio executives, he is now the Golden Goose. His portrayal of the Mad Hatter is definitely mad, but frustrated instead of insane. The story gives us the "why" of his madness, and it fits. The other big names in the film, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter, bring to their regal roles new quirkiness. Mia Wasikowska fits the Alice namesake well and, in some regards, upstages the other Wonderlanders with her subtle, sane direction.  But even wth all of this, my personal favorite was the Cheshire Cat... but who can resist a smiling feline who evaporates into air and has a "what will be, will be" attitude.

The film is worth a look if you a Burton fan, and the kids may get a kick out of it for its talking furry hares and rabbits, and sword-wielding mice. But on my journey back down the rabbit hole, drinking the potion makes you tiny, eating the cake makes you tall, and believing the advertising makes your wallet lighter.

One final note, if you don't "need" to see the movie in 3D, go ahead and save yourself a couple of bucks!

Worth: Matinee or DVD