Movie Review: "Lone Ranger" Can't Quite Pull it Off

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By A.O. Scott

Spirit Horse and Tonto

HOLLYWOOD---The Lone Ranger belongs to the ancient pop culture of the Great Depression and the early baby boom. His adventures were heard on radio, starting in the 1930s, and seen on television from 1949 to 1957, but unlike some of his cape-wearing peers, he has mostly stayed in the past, an object of fuzzy nostalgia and mocking incredulity, a symbol of simple pleasures and retrograde attitudes. The result is a frantic grab bag of plots and themes, a semester-long Westerns 101 college course crammed into two and a half hours and taught by a professor whose lecture notes were rearranged by a gust of wind on his way to class. In the end, though, “The Lone Ranger” can’t quite pull off the daredevil feats it has assigned itself. [link] (A&O Rating: ★★)