Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

zardoz-13 The Warner Brothers Network struggled to reboot "The Lone Ranger" without success as a weekly series in this cable TV adaptation. "Child's Play 3"director Jack Bender and "Let The Devil Wear Black" scenarists Stacy Title and Jonathan Penner have taken lots of liberties with the original material. Not only have they changed the names of various protagonists and the antagonists, but also they have altered major plot incidents. The Texas setting remains intact, and Boston bred Luke Hartman (Chad Michael Murray of "House of Wax") arrives from the East to visit his brother, Harmon Hartman (Sebastian Spence of "Little Boy Blues"), who moonlights as a Texas Ranger. Notice that the hero's name has been changed from John Reid to Luke Hartman. When the regulators start raising hell with homeowners in the route of the railway, Harmon and his fellow Rangers saddle up for action. Naturally, Luke wants to accompany his big brother, but Harmon refuses to let him join them. Nevertheless, Luke rides after them despite his older brother's warnings. Harmon allows him to spend the night with them. The chief villain in The Lone Ranger origin story was Butch Cavendish, but here he is known as Kansas City Haas (Dylan Walsh of "Congo"), who seems friendly enough in the beginning. Instead of leading the Rangers into a cross-fire in a valley, double-crossing Kansas and his armed regulators massacre the Texas Rangers while they are encamped for the evening. Kansas and his gunmen are trying to run settlers off their property so they can sell it to the railroad. Kansas plugs both Hartmans, but Luke manages to survive the ordeal. After being tutored by Tonto (Nathaniel Arcand) and given a mask by Native American witch doctor Kulakinah ( Wesi Studi of "Heat"), Hartman makes his first appearance at night as the Masked Man and thwarts Kansas and his gunmen from running a black family off their property. Murray dons a black mask and straddles a white horse, but his outfit looks nothing like Clayton Moore. For the record, Hartman meets Tonto when he tries to defend Tonto' sister in town from a gang of horny gunslingers on his first day out west. Of course, this cannot compare with Clayton Moore's "Lone Ranger" movies and TV episodes, but it is a serious, straightforward narrative that occasionally incorporates some humor and sexuality. Meantime, the Indians don't want to help. The most interesting character again is a villain, and Dylan Walsh savors the role with enthusiasm. At one point, Tonto's sister Alope (Anita Brown of "A Guy Thing") sinks into a hot tub with him. The dialogue is sometimes profane but always memorable. The WB didn't slight this oater. The rough-hewn sets look sumptuous, and the production values are strong. The use of songs behind the violence isn't as effective. In this version, Luke is a natural born crack shot with a handgun. Keep in mind that the Lone Ranger is more of a teenager. He saves Tonto's life at one point. Not bad.

Robert W. I had wondered a long time why a new version of The Lone Ranger hadn't been done and it wasn't a huge surprise to learn that the WB was going to teenagerize the legend. The series was never picked up but left us with an updated version of the classic western films. Chad Michael Murray just minutes before his fame plays The Lone Ranger and his alter ego. Everyone seems to be genuinely upset about this rendition but I don't quite see the problems although they're are a few, no doubt about it.This interpretation revolves around the arrival of future Harvard Lawyer Luke Hartman who has made his way out to Dallas, Texas to visit his brother and his wife and young son before making his way to school to fulfill his father's dreams. When Luke arrives a week early, his brother is on his way out on a manhunt. It turns out his brother is a member of a volunteer law enforcement group, a ranger. They are after a group of men called The Regulators who has been burning homes and causing problems in order to make way for the railroad coming through Texas. Luke disobeys his brother's warnings and follows the rangers out to find these men. During the night the Regulators led by Kansas City Haas, a man thought to be on the side of The Rangers, attacks the rangers and shoots them all where they sleep including Luke. However Luke doesn't die and is saved by a young Apache Indian whom Luke had saved his sister earlier that day. The Apache Indian known as Tonto takes Luke back to the camp and nurses him back to health with the help of the tribe. Luke begs for Tonto's help to train him in warrior ways in order to get revenge on Kansas City Haas and The Regulators. Tonto refuses knowing that it is against Tribal Law to train a white man. However after speaking to a close friend within the Tribe Tonto realizes he must help Luke. Together they train. Tonto teaches him everything he knows about being a warrior, hand to hand combat, discipline, mind control, everything. They lean on each other and become the best of friends. Tonto encourages Luke to don a mask in order to represent his warrior side and Luke becomes a masked man bent on revenge. Tonto and Luke track down The Regulators and when it comes down to Luke having the opportunity to avenge his brother's death, Silver, his horse stops him. Luke learns more while they work to find The Regulators a second time. When they meet again Luke learns that anger does not justify murder and he upholds and the law and captures the killer also deciding to stay and defend Texas as The Lone Ranger.Some things must be considered when going into this film. First and foremost this is less of a retelling than creating the legend over again for youngsters who probably never heard of Clayton Moore. So the film is made specifically with them in mind and no one else. Set old time western action to modern day dance music, forget any remnants of historical accuracy whatsoever, and basically just touch on the old Lone Ranger. All the elements are here...Tonto, Silver, the Mask, the guns, hi ho silver, and jumping onto his back, but do away with the white hat, black mask (it's brown.) They really go back to the roots of where this character is coming from and you also have to remember that this was meant to be a pilot to a series so they are basically only setting things up for future plot developments, including the romance. Some things are left so open for that reason. The cast is actually quite excellent. The unknown (at the time) Chad Michael Murray fits in perfectly, not so much with the western scenery, but just with the character, he's definitely a teenage draw. Nathaniel Arcand plays Tonto and he is great. He DOES fit in with the western scene and is excellent as the teacher and semi-sidekick but more of a partner. One thing I was impressed with was the film is rich with Native American heritage. How true it is, might be a different story but still it has that element of culture that is so often not covered in films. Director Jack Bender who has done some great Television does his best but I think the writing lacked something. I think it would have gotten better as a series. Overall it was an enjoyable teen flick rendition of the classic character and I don't know why people give it such a hard rap. Check it out if you ever get to see it, it's a rare gem. 7/10

Thirdover4 With his black leather pants, mask and open shirt, skinny Chad Murray looked more like a gay stripper than a western action hero. The most absurd, ludicrous dialogue I've ever heard, sounded more like it was written by the teenage girls than for teenage girls, the audience it was clearly aimed at. An unintentional laugh riot, this obvious attempt at modernizing the classic story is the type of work that ends careers. Sad but funny..

DrStrangeFate Chad Michael Murray just didn't have the screen presence to really pull this off. He just isn't very believable in the role and frankly, the Lone Ranger is a man to be feared and respected... Chad Michael Murray might be a teen heart throb but is not somebody that is the least bit intimidating. I thought that Nathaniel Arcand's rendition of Tonto was interesting, he does have more screen presence than Chad Michael Murray although he was a little heavy on the angst to be a very likeable character. If this ever becomes a series then hopefully he will tone it down a few notches. The brief romance angle between Tonto's sister and Luke Hartman was okay, the bath scene and explicit sexual overtones may have been a little over the top though as younger kids should be able to watch a show like this. I did like the mystical elements introduced, it adds an interesting angle to the character although the silly power-jumping stuff reminded me of an old show called Manimal for some odd reason.The background elements of the plot were loosely based on the established story... you know the one that has been established from the books, comics, TV show, and movies for 60 or so years. The writers apparently thought they could do better and decided to make changes that really didn't need to be made. I am not sure why they changed his name to Luke Hartman from Dan Reid.. again, a fact that has been established for over 60 years. I wonder if the copyright holder insisted that these name changes be made so that this is some type of "parallel-universe" version of the Lone Ranger and not the real thing. The overall design of the sets were good, whoever did the technical advising for the movie did a pretty good job. The hip hop music was P*A*I*N*F*U*L... in fact, most of the music was extremely inappropriate and instead of making the scenes hip, they made them awkward and confused. They did give a half-hearted nod to the real Lone Ranger by playing the William Tell Overture at the end and although the rendition was pretty good, the cinematics should have been better... it just looked silly, this skinny guy riding along with this giant Indian guy riding next to him... just who is the sidekick here anyway?The Lone Ranger's costume was pretty lousy, bearing zero continuity to the actual character and much more like a reject from the Village people. I know they are trying to make him look hip and cool but in doing so have made the character very undistinctive, average, and boring. Gone were all the trademarks elements that are part of the character. It seems to me that when you take a character as well known as the Lone Ranger, you should at least get people to make the film that have some granual of respect for the character itself and include at least some of the elements that make the character as enduring as it has been. When you change as much as these people have then you have a totally different product... this was not the Lone Ranger but rather a cheap knockoff masquerading as the Lone Ranger.Overall, the movie reminded me of Sony's Godzilla remake.. and is once again proof positive that completely re-inventing a classic icon is foolish and stupid because you automatically alienate any real fan base out there. Most males over the age of 30 probably grew up watching the real Lone Ranger on TV or listening to Radio shows when they were kids. I was hoping for a semi-mature effort from WB but instead we ended up with their usual, predictable attempt to lure in the young, hip crowd with a product that is cliche' and an insult to anybody that knows anything about the character. If this is going to be a series (ugh) , the only hope will be to grow this lame character into more of what it is traditionally suppose to be and introduce those elements that make the Lone Ranger special, but then again it seems some people feel that anything that rebels against tradition is the right thing to do.. how sad. The only redeeming value of this movie is that it made the 1981 flop "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" movie look much better. It was universally disliked because most people felt it strayed too far from the original but after watching it again and comparing it to this lame duck, it is about 100 times better than I remember it. If this ever becomes a series could it be saved? yes, but will it be saved? Probably not and that's a shame.