The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)

One of the things that I appreciated about the recent film Windwalker was that it took its time to really get established within the world of the Native Americans, who they were and what they believed.  For whatever reason, that’s same approach has been applied to The Legend of the Lone Ranger and it fails completely.  Here is a movie that should be busting out of the starting gate with action, adventure and a kind of wild and wooly spirit but instead spends it’s first hour trying to build the kinds of boring stuff that would kill a TV series in its pilot episode.

The problem mostly rests with the actor in the title role.  Klinton Spilsbury is not an actor.  He’s a model who looks great against the sun.  His hair is combed, his teeth are brushed but he has no screen presence, no sense of this character and he spends much of the film moping around while his dialogue is ADR’d in as if it is from the next room.

Who cares about this story.  I’m not interested in the origins of the Lone Ranger.  I’m not interested in how he got his bullets (which, according to this movie are brought up because he can’t shoot straight) and I’m not interested in his origins.  It is a full hour before he see him in his patented blue shirt and black mask but by that point, we’re so bored we couldn’t care less.

Look, I like a good origin story as much as the next guy but this movie is slow, dull, lifeless and makes violent turns that would have made Clayton Moore rip up his studio contract.  This isn’t The Lone Ranger.  I have idea who his is.