The Lone Ranger

It looked it’d be a real dud, but it’s watchable. Those who were thrilled by Pirates of the Caribbean or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull will certainly not be bored, as this film is similar both formally and aesthetically and in terms of the plot. It certainly has a unique mix of traditional Western elements (set design, costumes) perfectly matched in an excellent visual package (great effects, dynamic action scenes). The middle part of the film has are several redundant funny scenes and boring stretches, but William Fichtner and Tom Wilkinson are very entertaining, and the main duo of heroes is a classic. So, it’s fun though not impressive, and everyone knows how it will end from the beginning. Still a likable thing, though. (03/02/2014)

Exotic and beautifully shot summer bollocks. Depp is a lot of fun and Hammer is alright, but neither of them, nor the cookie-cutter script are enough to keep us interested for almost two and a half hours. It's a breezy and brilliantly scored adventure for the whole family, but it's cold as a penguin’s butt inside and relies too heavily on the fact that we're still interested in Depp's peculiar pirate character – very little from Verbinski. A better 3* (11/28/2015)

Cowboys and Indians for the twenty-first century pulling out all the stops; the bad ones and the good ones. And the dozens (dozens!) of neat, not immediately obvious allusions (the cicadas and the birds in the bush, the umbrella in the desert etc.), paradoxically more than in Rango, prove better than anything else that the creating team didn’t treat this as just another product. And, yes, this is unarguably “just" the Pirates of the Caribbean in Western garb. However, it should be said that, along with the first Pirates, this is the best to come out of that “series". (07/05/2013)

A small big man smokes a hallucinogenic peace pipe with Pirates of the Caribbean and a mute grotesque. A movie that looks like it's being told by a senile crazy Indian... because it's being told by a senile crazy Indian who also likes to listen to himself talk. The middle passage is a little weak, but otherwise I had a great time. Verbinski sometimes drowns in beloved references, but his "meta-westerns" are smarter than most genre competitors. That guy is not Tonto. (11/02/2013)

The Bruckheimer filters rather spoil the otherwise convincing western atmosphere served up to us so successfully by Verbinski. The struggle with this childish, sometimes infantile and senile (the narrator forgets to tell us all the details because he’s an old, crazy grampa) story is uphill. Good ideas here and there and the absolutely amazing train chase save the reputation of this movie. Hammer doesn’t stand out, Depp doesn’t disappoint and the only performance rally worth remembering is William Fichtner as an unscrupulous bad guy who laughs through his teeth. Zimmer’s music is again the tops and you can tell that he really enjoyed doing this movie. (10/07/2013)