First Hit: This film is a waste of the audiences’ time and Walt Disney would have never approved of releasing something like this.
The plot is mediocre, the acting is mediocre, the characters are poorly drawn-out, the concept is second-rate and it is painful to watch.
Briefly; John Reid (Armie Hammer) is an intellectual guy who grew up in the in the southwest and gets deputize by his brother to find a killer named Bruce Cavendish (William Fichtner). He gets shot and is left for dead.
Tonto (Johnny Depp) is a Comanche ousted by his tribe but decides to save Reid. Together they make up a team that tries to write the wrongs of Cavendish, railroad builder Cole (Tom Wilkinson) and the US Government’s actions towards the Native Americans.
Through a convoluted story line, we have Tonto being somewhat smart and serious, working to assist a slightly dimwitted Reid (AKA Lone Ranger) to right these wrongs. Yes, the concept is poor and way too big for the characters.
Hammer is not interesting in this leading role. And, although he's in the leading role, he is not the leading character. Depp is more interesting, appears to be the leading character, but seeing high-tech tattoos (his back and front) in a couple of scenes, made me realize that even good makeup doesn’t always work. This showed part of the flaws and the lack of carefulness of this film. Fichtner is meanly good enough to be a villain. Wilkinson is OK as someone who is only to get as much as he can. Ruth Wilson (as Rebecca Reid – John’s brothers’ wife) is one of the better characters and holds her part of the film together very well. Justin Haythe and Ted Elliot wrote a convoluted, unmanageable, and almost unfilmable screenplay. Gore Verbinski directed this like he did Pirates of the Caribbean films and the problem is he forgot that the Lone Ranger is a TV legend while the pirates weren’t.
Overall: This film can be passed over and it will not matter except to the people who invested in it because they will probably lose money.