I just finished watching "Legend of the Lone Ranger" again, and, as always, I come away scratching my head. Why isn't this a better movie? What went wrong?
On the plus side: John Barry does his usual bravura job with the score. Michael Horse's Tonto is as smart as Jay Silverheels, but more vocal, which is a nice change. Jason Robards is obviously having a ball playing Ulysses S. Grant, and every time he's onscreen, the energy quotient goes up.
On the minus side: Merle Haggard's narration -- what were they thinking? With the exception of Horse and Robards, everyone else acts like they were drugged before walking in front of the camera. Christopher Lloyd in particular tries to make his Butch Cavendish menacing, but he doesn't have much to work with. And Klinton Spilsbury...
It had to take a lot of guts to put on that black mask. No other character is so thoroughly identified with a single actor: there are people who will debate that Sean Connery wasn't the best Bond, or that there were Tarzans other than Johnny Weismuller, but to the world at large, Clayton Moore IS the Lone Ranger. It's easy to beat up on Spilsbury just because he's not Moore, which isn't fair, but it goes beyond that. In order for a movie like this to work, you have to believe that your star is the Lone Ranger, and I kept getting the impression Spilsbury didn't buy it himself. The producers obviously had their doubts, too, which accounts for why they redubbed all of Spilsbury's lines.
What it boils down to is, "Legend of the Lone Ranger" isn't the total catastrophe some claim, but it still isn't very good. It has a certain irresistable attraction to the diehard Lone Ranger fan, like gawking at a massive car wreck -- it'll kill a couple of hours, but it doesn't stick with you when it's all done.
