THE LONE RANGER has some of the same intended slapstick mayhem charms of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN films, and it does kinda work. Just about as bloated as that series in general. But what an oddball, halfbaked blockbuster. It drags in too many spots, a half hour too long and goes back and forth as both a sincere cornball throwback to the white hat western heroics and a parody of it. (Doesn't really work.)

I think the biggest problem is that it saddles itself with two origin stories for Mr. Lone Ranger and Tonto, and...they're not very interesting at all. Kinda boring honestly. Origin stories for say Superman and Batman and Spider-Man and so forth work because part of those characters' appeals as mythology goes.

Then again maybe I'm biased because Lone Ranger has been an irrelevant character since what, the 1950s? (Or let me put it this way: Sometimes origin stories are good to make a protagonist appealing. Other times actions do just fine. Did anybody care about knowing Jack Sparrow's origins in the first PIRATES movie with his antics and outsmarting his enemies?)

In contrast, I think of DREDD last year. That movie understood that Judge Dredd's origins didn't matter at all. He's fun because he's a resourceful, tough son of a bitch who shoots bad guys in the face.

TLR, not a bad film. It has some charms (the train race finale is insane) and not as bad as the terrible reviews are making this out to be. But you can wait for DVD on this one.