The basic story of this TV pilot was similar to the original `legend,' but it had its differences too, some major and some just silly. Instead of John Reid, former easterner and now Texas Ranger, we have Luke Hartman, law student and visitor to Dallas from the east, who just so happens to be a dead-on shot. Instead of Butch Cavendish and his gang, we have `Kansas City' Haas and the Regulators who kill the Rangers. Unknown to them, Luke survives and is nursed back to health by Tonto, an Apache who owes him a debt from early in the movie. After recovering, Luke is driven by vengeance over the murder of his brother and trains with the help of Tonto and Kulakinah, the Apache medicine man ably portrayed by Wes Studi. His desire for revenge is understandable, but the `don't stoop to his level' scene with his great almost-mystic horse Silver was pretty silly.
A couple of things that say `this is the Lone Ranger' were either missing or misplaced to the end. First, in previous incarnations, the Lone Ranger always valued human life, knowing that it was precious. The silver bullets he used in the books, radio shows, early movies, and TV show, represented that link to life. Silver bullets, like life, are valuable, and are not to be used lightly. The silver bullets were nowhere to be seen in this movie, and the revelation about the preciousness of life was only discovered at the end.
Secondly, this TV movie began without the William Tell Overture, which was a bad sign, and ended with a quick-time rock version of the WTO that sounded as if it was thrown in for as short a time as possible just because everyone was expecting it. In the closing scene, the galloping horses appeared to have been speeded up as they often did in the original series, though in this case it looked more like the actors and the horses were just trying to get to the end of the movie as fast as they could rather than trying to catch outlaws.
A few minor quibbles:
The acting ability of the stars was like much of what one sees on the WB, neither particularly good nor extraordinarily bad. Again, like many of the WB's shows, the cast members were mostly in their younger 20's, with a few exceptions. Because they were in Texas, the Apaches lived in tepees, which would probably have been historically correct, rather than the traditional Apache wickiup, but the hot tub in the largest tepee the world has ever seen (or maybe it was a medicine lodge?) was completely over the top! Even if one grants that an in-ground tub could have existed, the hot water with JETTED bubbles was just a little too much! Well, maybe a lot too much.
In summary, as a movie, it had the basic flavor of the Lone Ranger, but it was not the movie that it could have been, and in the end, it left a flat taste on the palate. If it overcomes the odds and the production cost problems and becomes a TV series, perhaps these issues can be corrected.
My rating: 5/10.
A couple of things that say `this is the Lone Ranger' were either missing or misplaced to the end. First, in previous incarnations, the Lone Ranger always valued human life, knowing that it was precious. The silver bullets he used in the books, radio shows, early movies, and TV show, represented that link to life. Silver bullets, like life, are valuable, and are not to be used lightly. The silver bullets were nowhere to be seen in this movie, and the revelation about the preciousness of life was only discovered at the end.
Secondly, this TV movie began without the William Tell Overture, which was a bad sign, and ended with a quick-time rock version of the WTO that sounded as if it was thrown in for as short a time as possible just because everyone was expecting it. In the closing scene, the galloping horses appeared to have been speeded up as they often did in the original series, though in this case it looked more like the actors and the horses were just trying to get to the end of the movie as fast as they could rather than trying to catch outlaws.
A few minor quibbles:
The acting ability of the stars was like much of what one sees on the WB, neither particularly good nor extraordinarily bad. Again, like many of the WB's shows, the cast members were mostly in their younger 20's, with a few exceptions. Because they were in Texas, the Apaches lived in tepees, which would probably have been historically correct, rather than the traditional Apache wickiup, but the hot tub in the largest tepee the world has ever seen (or maybe it was a medicine lodge?) was completely over the top! Even if one grants that an in-ground tub could have existed, the hot water with JETTED bubbles was just a little too much! Well, maybe a lot too much.
In summary, as a movie, it had the basic flavor of the Lone Ranger, but it was not the movie that it could have been, and in the end, it left a flat taste on the palate. If it overcomes the odds and the production cost problems and becomes a TV series, perhaps these issues can be corrected.
My rating: 5/10.