Movie - The Lone Ranger

Megan and I went to see "The Lone Ranger"

Nothing like the TV series of old.  Quite a juxtaposition of things.  In the new movie, Tonto (the Indian) is the smart one.  The character who ends up unwillingly becoming the lone ranger is a somewhat inept starry eyed well intentioned recent graduate from law school who does not carry a gun and appears to believe that criminals will come willingly to a fair system.

It would seem to me that the real story line of the move is the effect of the coming of the white man on the Indian civilisation.  The corruption of power that comes from building and owning the railroad that is being built across the USA is combined with the corruption of greed that comes from discovering nuggets of silver.

 In one thread the bad guys who were found injured and nursed back to health by the Indians turn on the Indians and kill them to keep the location of the silver a secret.  Later the same bad guys disguise themselves as Indians and attack some white settlements so that the white people / railroad owners can break a treaty they had with the Indians and build a shorter straight track.  This allows the white people to bring in the army who use a machine gun to decimate the Indians once again.

All of this is interspersed with humorous scenes where the laws of physics are suspended.   The white horse ridden by the lone ranger is endowed with special powers including the ability to appear on roofs.  This leads to an interesting horse chase along roof tops and onto the roof of the train.  There are symbolic scenes where the Lone ranger is tied to a stake and blind folded on a flat rail car car.  Tonto the indian then using a second flat car pushes him through the middle of the battle with bullets and arrows whistling past and because of his blindfold he has no idea what s going on.  Symbolic of those of us who live our lives unaware of the battles between others. 

All threads intertwine -  The apparently genteel railroad owner turns out to be the brother of the bad guy who found the silver with the help of a young naive Indian boy.  The Indian "Tonto" turns out to be the young boy who showed the bad white guys the location of the silver.  The lone ranger at one stage tries the classic "Hi Ho Silver Away".


I suspect this movie has been partially made to try and write another side to the story of the wild west.  The humor and CGI is used to get people in.  And of of course to dilute the gore in more ways than one.  I guess we leave think that was ...... a bit odd.  A mixture of western, of slap stick humor, Matrix/Bourne conspiracy and a feeling that one has just sat through a sermon without realising it.