The Lone Ranger
This is like a generic Pirates of the Caribbean ripoff, except it’s by the same people. How the fuck is a live action film less expressive than Rango? And why that casting, why, just why‽ Corporate bullshit at its peak, just burning money on nothing.
It contains all the American Exceptionalism hallmarks: “fair treaties” with Indian nations violated by bad guys, the US Army being misled into massacres, corporate boards being the good guys. It’s The Man sticking it to the man.
The source material is basically worthless anyway, the “theme song” is just “Can Can”, at least you have some prostitutes in the cast. They throw out some treats for the woke crowd, but nothing “political”. The Indian stuff is just laughable, it was better done in that Mel Gibson film from the 90s, Maverick.
Then the casting, ironic as it comes. I don’t know who this low-rent Michelle Monaghan is, is she considered old by Hollywood standards now? She is playing a mother already, I’m guessing they wasted the money elsewhere.
Putting a white man in white face to play a Comanche is more of the same minstrel shows they use on the framing device. Not sure if that’s better than a literal cannibal billionaire, a grandchild of an oil man, as the anti-Vanderbilt outlaw.
The Texas Ranger mythos continues unabated, credentialed murderers deputised into terror campaigns fight for law and order, as soon as they have a silver star. Looking forward to the ISIS hagiographies in the future.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.