Nice effects though.

Better Late Then Never

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

Here's how you know you're a loser. It's the spring of 1981. You're a high school senior, and you've never kissed a girl. You've never been on a date. You have no friends. Your mother tries to cheer you up by taking you to a movie, and you pick . . . the Lone Ranger. This was the night when I finally accepted the fact that I was a loser. What kind of 18 year old boy goes to the movies with his mother? The movie was so awful, and the worse it got the more it became clear to me . . . I deserved this. I deserved it for being a loser with no friends. But still the movie wouldn't stop! Now, as horrible as the movie was, I do remember a couple of good moments. There was a big battle early on, where a whole Ranger troop gets wiped out. And there's an old timer who tells the young Lone Ranger, "don't worry, kid . . . I've been a Ranger longer than you've been alive!" And he talks about some real life battles of the Texas Rangers, while calmly loading and firing and bringing down several bad guys. It's a nice moment. But then he dies. Just like all my high school hopes and dreams!Oh, and later on, the cowardly villain Butch Cavendish meets Ulysses S. Grant, and tries to explain why he became a villain. "I deserted my men -- I ran from the field of battle -- I was accused of cowardice -- it wasn't my fault!" And Grant just looks at him quietly, and says, "It never is." That line really stuck with me over the years. Because I mean, I came up short in high school, I had to face it that night. No good times. No dates. No happy memories. But you know what? Maybe Grant wasn't just putting Butch down. Maybe Grant understood that some guys just don't have what it takes, in combat or in high school. Maybe some guys just don't get the right break, or they only get one chance and they blow it. Over the years I've spent a lot of time thinking about what Grant says in this movie. In a way it's given me a certain kind of strength. But the movie still sucks.

This attempt to give the legendary Lone Ranger character an origin story is passably entertaining, but could have used better lead actors and a more interesting tale to tell. As a directorial effort by a noted cinematographer (William A. Fraker) that is shot by one of his peers (Laszlo Kovacs), it's not a surprise that the movie LOOKS great. The beautiful scenery looks magnificent in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and John Barry supplies a typically engaging music score.Klinton Spilsbury stars as John Reid, who as a child was orphaned thanks to maniacal bandits. He befriended the young Indian Tonto, and was adopted by Tontos' tribe. As an adult, he prepares to begin a career in law, but fate intervenes. His brother Dan (John Bennett Perry) is a Texas Ranger, who with his troops rides off to apprehend the nefarious villain "Butch" Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd) and his minions. But Cavendish and company ambush the Rangers, and only John survives. Nursed back to health by the adult Tonto (Michael Horse), he puts into motion a plan of revenge, while wearing a mask to obscure his identity. He must also rescue U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant (Jason Robards), who is kidnapped by Cavendishs' goons.Spilsbury is a very handsome man, but unfortunately he's just too bland as an actor. Even using James Keach to dub his lines doesn't really help. Horse gives his character pride and dignity, but he's not particularly charismatic either. Spilsburys' leading lady Juanin Clay (playing brave newspaper woman Amy Striker) is another debit, although she *is* certainly lovely. Lloyd is an okay villain, although he just doesn't project a lot of menace or intensity. Robards is a colorful President Grant, and he's among a solid supporting cast also including Matt Clark as a useless sheriff, David Hayward as one of the Rangers, and John Hart as Amys' uncle Lucas. Richard Farnsworth has a typically delightful cameo as Wild Bill Hickok.Well intentioned but decidedly unmemorable, this movie may do the trick for dedicated Western fans. That narration by Merle Haggard, however, is intrusive and annoying.Six out of 10.

I had always been a fan of "The Lone Ranger" since I was a little boy...Clayton Moore and John Hart were so good in their episodes riding into our living rooms with each episode making our day so exciting and teaching us a lesson with each airing... Somehow I missed seeing this movie in the theaters when it first came out but I was determined to see it someday, somehow...Then in 2013, Disney's "The Lone Ranger" came out and mostly to negative reviews however I took my wife and we both loved it as it appeared did most of the people in the audience. Good clean fun, and very exciting, carefully balancing it's comic sequences with phenomenally choreographed action sets...cannot understand how this movie was so universally panned...it deserved better. It also whet my appetite again to see this 1980's version. I was able to purchase a copy off Amazon and couldn't wait to see it. Never in my life had I been so disappointed. Spilsbury, rightfully gave up acting after his lone wooden depiction of one of my all time heroes. In fact I found out that his lines were dubbed over by Stacey Keach's younger brother as he was SO bad. Particularly annoying was Merle Haggard's narration of the story, in poetic verse nonetheless, with forced rhymes that were unintentionally laughable...They also messed with the legend having Tonto meet the Lone Ranger years before when they were both children and a young John Reid who would grow up to be the LR saved Tonto's life!...The final scenes were OK, but it was too little too late to save this movie. It did help to see John Hart come back to make a brief appearance as a newspaper publisher but overall I cannot come up with anything good to say about this movie other than it was relatively short coming in at just over an hour and a half.

Scenic locales, gorgeous cinematography, superb set design, atmospheric art direction, and a first-class supporting cast cannot salvage "Monte Walsh" director William A. Fraker's lame western "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" with a impassive Klinton Spilsbury cast as the Masked Man. Spilsbury is a tall, lean gent with a strong chin and a dashing profile. In other words, he would have made a great Marlboro Man, but he conveys no sense of presence. Not only is this western an origins epic establishing the genesis of the Lone Ranger, but it is also an abduction opus since the hero must rescue President Ulysses S. Grant from the villainous Major Bartholomew 'Butch' Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd of "Back to the Future") who attacks his train. You would think President Grant would have surrounded himself with an army of soldiers as his bodyguards, but they are nowhere to be seen. When we get our first glimpse of the Lone Ranger, John Reid is an adolescent who saves a young Tonto from a gang of ruthless ruffians. No sooner has young Reid saved Tonto from these villains than he scrambles back to his home to find these same dastards attacking his ranch. They gun down both his mother and father in cold blood, and later his big brother packs him off to Detroit. Of course, Detroit would be the perfect place since the original "Lone Ranger" radio series aired there on WXYZ in the first place in 1933. Later, after he has grown up and graduated from law school, he visits his brother, Captain Dan Reid (John Bennett Perry of "Independence Day"),and they ride off in pursuit of the gunmen who hanged a crusading newspaper publisher (John Hart of "The Lone Ranger") in the dusty town of Del Rio, Texas. It seems that Lucas Striker has printed some unkind words about Cavendish, and he repays the favor by dispatching his hooligans to slip a noose around his neck. The ambush at Bryant's Gap—one of the few events that distinguish this horse opera-- is staged with gusto. Cavendish's men launch wagons laden with explosives off promontories at either end of the gap and cut the Rangers off from escaping while his army of riflemen massacre them. They use a Gatling gun to mow down the poor lawmen. In this version of the legend, Cavendish is no longer an ordinary outlaw but a former U.S. Army officer court-marshaled by Grant. Cavendish plans to establish his own kingdom in Texas and intends to use Grant as his bargaining chip to realize his dream. Christopher Lloyd plays Cavendish as a tight-lipped martinet, and he does some strange things himself. When he orders the execution of two of his henchmen (Ted Gehring and Buck Taylor of TV's "Gunsmoke"), he has them blindfolded and seated in chairs before a firing squad. Believe it or not, one of Cavendish's other henchmen is portrayed by no less than Tom Laughlin of "Billy Jack" fame.This 98-minute horse opera perished at the box office partially because of an ill-fated public relations campaign that stripped the original Lone Ranger--Clayton Moore--of his mask. After he finished making "The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of God," Moore appeared in various commercials with sidekick Jay Silverheels and attended movie conventions where he signed autographs. The was the primary way that the former Masked Man generated revenue for himself and his family in his later years. Something must have gone wrong in the process of making the movie because the producers used John Hart, who took over the role momentarily after a contract dispute. Particularly objectionable is the reliance upon a balladeer (country singer Merle Haggard) to provide musical narration that serves no purpose. We know everything that we need to know and then here comes Merle underlining what we already know. The problems with the script are numerous. A relationship between John Reed and Amy Striker has its moments when they swap spit, but it goes no farther. Instead of the outlaws killing Amy's father, they should have killed her accidentally when she got in their way. This would have ended the romance and given the Lone Ranger another reason to ride the back trails for justice. The scene where the Masked Man gallops alone into Del Rio to rescue Tonto from a hangman's noose is inferior. He faces little opposition from the townspeople. Although the finale with the Lone Ranger and Tonto infiltrating Cavendish hidden fort turns out to explosive stuff, this entire scene makes it too easy for our heroes who encounter no trouble. The screenplay includes historical figures such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and General George A. Custer. Jason Robards is good as Grant, but the story is formulaic. If you didn't know any better, "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" might make a tolerable rainy day movie. Michael Horse plays Tonto, but the two generate little sense of camaraderie. "Your sins will be paid for in the fires of hell," proclaims Grant when he sentences Cavendish to prison. He could have been the idiots who took away Clayton Moore's mask and came up with this oater. Stacy Keach's younger brother James dubbed Klinton Spilsbury's dialogue, but not even he can cry "Hi, Yo-Silver" with any enthusiasm. I grew up watching Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels ride across the small screen as well as the big screen in "The Lone Ranger" and "The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold," and both of these outings surpass this technically elegant looking sagebrusher. The DVD release of this inferior western is just as lame because it is presented in the Pan & Scan format until the end credits roll and the images appear in widescreen letterb0xed format.