THE LONE RANGER – The Blu Review

Last summer’s THE LONE RANGER was labelled a bomb before it even opened and sure enough, it lost a boatload of bucks for the folks at Disney. To me, the biggest negative was the film’s length. At 2 hours and 30 minutes, I think 40 minutes could have easily been whittled out and the film would have been better received, though it’s certainly not any more bloated than some of the superhero movies that everyone likes, and which it’s pace and sense of overblown adventure seems to be modeled after.

Johnny Depp played a wonderfully weird Tonto, a wandering Comanche Native American who is hunting an evil spirit and also the man he believes can help him kill that evil spirit. Armie Hammer was a handsome, square-jawed Lone Ranger, a recent law school graduate looking to bring his sense of fair justice to town. THE LONE RANGER was a whole lot of fun. I really think this movie was killed by bad press and hopefully it makes somewhat of a comeback on retail DVD/Blu-ray sales and digital downloads. I think many people who read about it online, formed an opinion, and avoided it should see it for themselves.

And they can on December 17th when THE LONE RANGER makes its home entertainment debut on Blu-ray.

We Are Movie Geeks has seen the Blu-ray and are pleased to report that it looks fantastic. Bojan Bazelli’s cinematography is stunning, with photography that accentuates the natural beauty of the American west. The 1080p 2:40:1 aspect transfer is rich with depth and detail, with inky blacks and bright vivid earthy colors, so important with so much of the movie taking place outdoors in the sunlight. And once the action kicks into high gear, this disc delivers absolute, demo-worthy perfection. The DTSD HD Master Audio 7.1 is Disney aggressive, filling the sound field with incredible atmosphere that helps punctuate every single scene. Dialogue is free of distortions or crackles, and bass is sure to shake every inch of your home theater. So dim the lights, crank up the audio and prepare to wake the neighbors with a hearty “Hi-Yo Silver!”

You’d think Disney would have packed the disc with extras to try and make back some of the money they lost, but they’re surprisingly paltry.

Armie’s Western Road Trip is a 14 minute long featurette about the film’s production. An enthusiastic Arnie Hammer takes the viewer on location to where several scenes were shot

Riding the Rails of The Lone Ranger looks at how they constructed several massive train sets for the film. I enjoyed this the most because I assumed much of what I was seeing was CGI when it was not.

Becoming A Cowboy is an 8-minute featurette that illustrates all that the cast had to endure, learning to ride horses, shoot guns, etc,. so they could play cowboys convincingly.

Deleted Scene – there’s just one and it’s really a computer-animated visual illustrating a scene involving a swarm of locusts that was never shot. It runs 3 ½ minutes.

Besides a DVD version of the film, that’s about it. No commentary or history of the characters but, especially if you skipped it in theaters, the Blu-ray of THE LONE RANGER is definitely worth checking out.