--- title: "The Lone Ranger" year: 2013 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-lone-ranger" fi1m_score: 55 critics_score: 48 critics_reviews: 17 published: "2026-09-16T23:33:50.623471+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T23:34:18.918330+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Lone Ranger (2013) Directed by Gore Verbinski · 2h 29m · MPA PG-13 · Action, Adventure, Western **Fi1m score: 55** · Critics 48 from 17 reviews *In a sentence:* A hundred and forty-nine minutes to explain why a man wears a mask, and the horse still gets the best jokes > Gore Verbinski opens and closes with runaway trains as well staged as anything in his *Pirates* films, and spends the two hours between them unsure whether his hero is a joke. Worth an evening for the finale; bring patience. ## Synopsis In 1933 a boy in a Lone Ranger costume wanders a San Francisco fairground and finds an ancient Comanche, Tonto (Johnny Depp), in a sideshow, who tells him how it happened. Texas, 1869: John Reid (Armie Hammer), a city lawyer, comes home by train to the railroad town of Colby, where his brother Dan (James Badge Dale) is a Texas Ranger married to Rebecca (Ruth Wilson). On the same train, in chains, are Tonto and the outlaw Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner), whose gang tears up the track to free him. Railroad man Cole (Tom Wilkinson) is driving the line west across Comanche land. The Rangers ride after Cavendish and are ambushed; Tonto finds John among the dead. ## Review Gore Verbinski, Jerry Bruckheimer and the writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio made the first *Pirates of the Caribbean* out of a theme-park ride, so a western made out of a radio serial should surprise nobody. With Justin Haythe they have given *The Lone Ranger* a framing idea: the story is told by an ancient Tonto to a boy at a fairground, which means the masked man is remembered as a fool and the sidekick as the one who understood. It is a decent idea inside a 149-minute film with two marvellous train sequences at either end and, in the middle, a picture that cannot decide what it thinks of its own hero. John Reid (Armie Hammer) and Tonto (Johnny Depp) are shackled together on the roof of a moving carriage while Butch Cavendish’s gang rips up the rails ahead, and Bojan Bazelli keeps the camera far enough back that we can always see how little track is left. James Haygood and Craig Wood cut it long, on the movement rather than the impact, so a man falling from a roof reads as a man falling and not as a flurry. The engine goes through the end of the line and keeps going. We sat up. Hammer plays Reid as an upright prig who does not carry a gun and is slightly proud of it, and the script never lets him become anything else. Depp’s Tonto is a face of cracked white paint under a dead crow he keeps trying to feed, and his timing is silent-comedy timing: the long stare, the small adjustment. Some of it is funny. But the film wants him to be both the clown and its conscience, and a white actor in paint playing a Comanche as an eccentric sits badly, however much Penny Rose’s outcast costume protests. Every sad piece of backstory feels like an apology for the previous joke. The middle hour and a half argues with itself. William Fichtner’s Cavendish is a proper villain, with a ruined mouth and dead eyes, and he does something to a dying man in the first act that we were startled to find in a 12A. Then there is a horse standing in a tree. Then the cavalry, under Barry Pepper’s Fuller, opens up on a Comanche charge with a Gatling gun and the film treats it as a massacre, which it is, and cuts to Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Harrington and her ivory leg. Tom Wilkinson’s Cole delivers speeches about progress in a voice like a closing door. We were bored, then unsettled, then bored again, and none of it led anywhere. The craft is expensive and mostly good. Jess Gonchor’s Colby is a town of raw planks and one brick building with the railway running straight through it, and the half-finished trestle bridge is a set that earns its screen time. Bazelli shoots the desert wide and flat, in the compositions John Ford made the shape of the genre, and Hans Zimmer holds the one tune everybody is waiting for until the last possible minute. When the William Tell Overture does arrive, over two trains on parallel tracks and a white horse galloping along a carriage roof, it works on us completely. We grinned, we sat forward, and we were slightly ashamed of ourselves after the previous hour. Verbinski stages the whole finale as a single piece of clockwork, with people changing trains, a ladder swung between carriages and a bridge coming apart under the lot, and he never lets us lose track of who is where. It is the best sustained action he has directed. His own *Rango*, from 2011, was a comedy western with the same landscapes, a fraction of the sprawl and a clear view of its hero. This one seems embarrassed by him and then asks us to cheer. Most critics landed near where we have, half won over and half exhausted. See the first twenty minutes and the last twenty in the largest room you can find. What you do with the two hours between them is your own business, and the film will not notice. *Fi1m score 55, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics find The Lone Ranger too long and too uncertain of what kind of film it wants to be, and the reviews lean negative. What praise there is gathers around the same things: the two runaway train sequences, which several reviewers name as the best reason to stay, the scale of the locations, and Gore Verbinski’s eye for a wide shot. Armie Hammer is generally judged to be game and engaging in the title role. The reservations are consistent even where the scores are not. Nearly everyone complains about the runtime and the origin-story padding that precedes the action; many find the tone lurching between slapstick and slaughter; and the handling of Depp’s Tonto draws objections from several quarters. The spread is wide. Empire stands almost alone in calling it a surprising success, and The Telegraph admires it as a fascinating folly, while The Wrap and Screen Daily rate it a near-total failure. ### Reviews we read (17) - **Empire**, Angie Errigo (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the film as a surprising, well-executed blockbuster with strong storytelling, humor, and spectacular action sequences, especially the climactic train set-piece. Performances by Depp and Hammer are highlighted as engaging and well-pitched. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/lone-ranger-review/) - **The AV Club**, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (B-): The review describes an ironic, overstuffed adventure full of visual gags, references, and train chases that compensates for lacking sustained energy. It praises Hammer’s game performance and Verbinski’s compositions but faults the portrayal of Depp’s Tonto and the overlong runtime. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-lone-ranger-1798177265) - **The Telegraph**, Robbie Collin (70/100, inferred): The film is a strange, fascinating and often thrilling grand folly despite its problems and pre-ordained flop status. The critic singles out Depp's distinctive performance as half Buster Keaton, half outcast clown, and Verbinski's ambitious borrowings from classic westerns. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/10171584/The-Lone-Ranger-review.html) - **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (60/100, inferred): Gore Verbinski’s film is the Western for the age of meta-cinema, functioning as conceptual art that says more about contemporary Hollywood filmmaking than the American West. It assembles signifiers of classic Westerns with clever but abstract action, winking at genre lovers while prioritizing the idea of the movie over its embodiment. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-lone-ranger-rides-again) - **Slant Magazine**, R. Kurt Osenlund (2/4): The review calls the film a predictably bloated tentpole that regurgitates Depp’s Sparrow tics and indulges in excess while evoking John Ford visuals. It singles out the numbing action set pieces, hypocrisy in its themes, and problematic casting/characterization of Tonto for criticism. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-lone-ranger/) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy (50/100, inferred): The critic calls it a moderately amusing but very uneven revisionist adventure that tries too many ways tonally and wobbles as a result. He singles out the scenic locations, Hans Zimmer score, and William Fichtner’s villain performance for praise while noting the overlong runtime. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/lone-ranger-film-review-577558/) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (2/5): The critic finds the film fantastically mediocre and overly long, with a clunky origin story and mannered performances that fail to engage. The one thing singled out is the contrast between the energetic William Tell Overture and the film's sluggish pace. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/08/the-lone-ranger-review) - **The New York Times**, A.O. Scott (40/100, inferred): The film is a hyperactive, multipurpose amusement machine that turns frontier history into spectacle, uniting generations in bafflement, stupefaction and occasional delight. It frames the story as tall tales told by an elderly Tonto to a boy, signaling a world of myths and strange storytelling. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/movies/in-the-lone-ranger-tonto-takes-center-stage.html) - **Time Out**, Tom Huddleston (35/100, inferred): The film is predictable, derivative and often spectacularly boring, with little of the freshness from the Pirates of the Caribbean films. It is saved somewhat by two crackling runaway train sequences and Depp's robust Tonto performance. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-lone-ranger) - **Variety**, Peter Debruge (30/100, inferred): Tonto gets top billing in this extravagant but exhausting reboot that delivers Bruckheimer-style energy and spectacle but sucks out the fun, denying the novelty needed for a franchise. The over-the-top oater devolves into cartoonish shenanigans amid complicated plotting and uneven performances. [Read](https://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/the-lone-ranger-review-1200503371/) - **Vulture**, David Edelstein (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film way too long, repetitive, mostly unfunny, and overly synthetic due to CGI. He singles out its uncomfortable mix of silliness and sadism, plus the inconsistent tone between buddy antics and carnage, as major flaws. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2013/07/movie-review-the-lone-ranger.html) - **Screen Daily** (20/100, inferred): Transplanting the Pirates aesthetic to the Wild West proves disastrous, resulting in forced humour and overbearing action with little charm or excitement. The odd-couple dynamic between leads lacks chemistry and comic timing is leaden. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/the-lone-ranger/5057879.article) - **Den of Geek**, Simon Brew (3/5): The critic praises the film's bold ambition, stunning landscapes, production design and thrilling action sequences, especially the climactic train chase. They single out excessive length and padding as the main flaws that prevent it from being fully successful. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-lone-ranger-review-2/) - **Digital Spy**, Emma Dibdin (3/5): The critic notes that Johnny Depp dominates as Tonto in this flawed but soulful western with strong scripting in places. They single out the excessive backstory, padding and destabilized central dynamic as major complaints that make it a captivating failure. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a504129/the-lone-ranger-review-digital-spy-verdict/) - **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (C-): The critic finds the film overly long and bogged down by origin-story preamble that drains patience before the action truly begins. Verbinski's strong structuring and the leads' performances are singled out positively amid the bloat. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-the-lone-ranger-starring-johnny-depp-armie-hammer-20130701/) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (D): The critic finds the film overly long with a flabby screenplay, erratic tone, undeveloped characters, and offensive stereotypes, making it a chore to sit through. Armie Hammer's performance and some action set pieces are singled out as redeeming qualities. [Read](https://collider.com/the-lone-ranger-review/) - **The Wrap**, Alonso Duralde (20/100, inferred): The film is schizophrenic and reluctant about its own hero, torn between deconstructing the legend and presenting it straightforwardly. It delivers neither as post-modern comedy, exciting Western, nor exhilarating summer entertainment, resulting in a joyless, endless two-and-a-half-hour slog that is a drag as an action movie and not funny in its self-parody. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/lone-ranger-review-johnny-depp-armie-hammer-gore-verbinski-100616/) ## Details - **Director:** Gore Verbinski - **Director:** Gore Verbinski - **Screenplay:** Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio - **Cinematography:** Bojan Bazelli - **Editor:** James Haygood, Craig Wood - **Music:** Hans Zimmer - **Production design:** Jess Gonchor - **Costume design:** Penny Rose - **Producer:** Jerry Bruckheimer, Gore Verbinski - **Cast:** Johnny Depp as Tonto; Armie Hammer as John Reid / The Lone Ranger; Tom Wilkinson as Cole; William Fichtner as Butch Cavendish; Helena Bonham Carter as Red Harrington; Barry Pepper as Fuller; James Badge Dale as Dan Reid; Ruth Wilson as Rebecca Reid - **Runtime:** 2h 29m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 3 July 2013 - **Genres:** Action, Adventure, Western - **Budget:** $215 million - **Box office:** $261 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoVhgaj6PiE ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $4.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $4.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, HU, IE, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, SE, SI, TR, UA, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2014: Best Makeup and Hairstyling (nominated); Best Visual Effects (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Rango* (2011): Verbinski’s other western, with the same desert, sharper jokes and a hero it likes - *Dead Man* (1995), Fi1m 84: Depp as a lost easterner with a Native guide, taken seriously and shot in black and white — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/dead-man-walking.md) - *Little Big Man* (1970): An old man’s tall tale of the frontier that makes the joke and the grief land - *Once Upon a Time in the West* (1968), Fi1m 91: The railroad villain western done slow, patient and with a proper sense of menace — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west.md) - *The Mask of Zorro* (1998): How to reboot a pulp hero straight, with a mask, a mentor and no apology --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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