Seongyong's Private Place

Pacific Rim (2013) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Jaegers Vs. Kaijus

Posted on July 13, 2013 by kaist455

“Pacific Rim” is big, loud, and, above all, exciting and interesting. There are lots of crashes and bangs as those huge CGI creatures clashing with each other on the big screen, but this is not one of those bland, bloated blockbusters numbing our nerve ends. It is numbing to watch at times, but this humongous piece of work is handled with skill and passion even when it staggers due to its heavy weight. Unlike those dreadful Transformers sequels, the movie has a fairly adequate story to pull us into its action sequences, and it is also a bountiful visual experience which always has something to behold even when it becomes loud and busy.

The movie is clearly inspired by those Japanese animation series featuring giant robots such as Neon Genesis Evangelion. When I was very young, I and my little brother used to watch some of them on TV, and, as far as I could remember, we had a good time with them though I cannot possibly watch them again with straight face now. Those big robots in the animation series usually fought against equally big creatures appearing on the Earth for various fantastic reasons, and this was surely as preposterous as Japanese monster movies, which are another major inspiration of the movie.

In its long prologue sequence, the movie shows us how the human civilization has been disrupted by huge monsters called Kaijus and how the humanity has counterattacked for years. The portal connected to somewhere in the outer space was suddenly opened at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and, as soon as they came out of the portal and rose above the ocean surface, Kaijus wreaked havoc on many coastal cities including San Francisco, Manila, Tokyo, and others. They can be killed, but the collateral damage was always enormous in the end, and it looked like the end of civilization to many people on the Earth as the attacks became more intense year by year.

Fortunately, through the global collaboration, the humanity found a more effective way to deal with this apocalyptic catastrophe. They built giant robots named Jaegers, and they also developed the advanced technology called ‘drift’ to link human brain with Jaeger for quick response and flexible control. Due to the complex handling quite burdensome to one pilot, the robots were designed to be controlled by two pilots, and, because their minds are openly connected with each other to work together within Jaeger’s head, strong teamwork is always required in any case.

The Jaegers of Pan Pacific Defense Corps(PPDC) have successfully taken care of Kaijus for a while, but the situation becomes more difficult. Kaiju attacks become more frequent than ever, and they sort of evolve to defeat Jaegers. The national leaders decide to drop the Jaeger project, and the big walls for protecting coastal cities are built or being built around the world, but, as you have already guessed, they are not so effective in front of those aggressive monsters driven to kill and destroy everything in their sights.

While the humanity seems to be losing, Stacker Pentecost(Idris Elba), an ex-Jaeger pilot and the commander of PPDC, has a plan. He prepares for the plan behind his back as gathering Jaegers and their pilots at the Headquarter in Hong Kong, and we see various robots being repaired and tested while looking around the headquarter. The director/co-writer Guillermo del Toro and his crew fill the scenes with big and small details, and we can appreciate robots as the machines which have been used for years through the grime and rust on their surface. They do not look colorful, but they are distinctive in metallic sense, and so are their pilots, though they are mostly broad characters including the tough father and son pilots from Australia.

Pentacost personally recruits Raliegh Becket(Charlie Hunnam), ex-Jaeger pilot who lost his brother/co-pilot 5 years ago during their mission near Alaska. Becker is reluctant at first, but he is eventually back to his position, and he is soon teamed with Mako Mori(Rinko Kikuchi) as his new partner. Like Becket, she has a personal issue to deal with despite her talent, and the movie gives some time to them as they bond as partners(but not as lovers – at least in this time).

It is a bit dragged after the prologue, but the movie takes its time to establish the story and characters and their world. As a director who has fascinated us with strange and weird creatures in his great film “Pan’s Labyrinth”(2006) and Hellboy films, De Toro has a slimy and sticky fun with his monsters in the movie. The monsters in the movie usually appear during night, so we cannot see them clearly sometimes, but I must say they look both terrifying and wonderful with teeth, claws, fluorescent lights, and some surprises they have behind their thick skin. We are later introduced to a black market place where the various body parts of Kaiju are illegally sold at high price(not so surprisingly, people unreasonably believe they are good for health), and Ron Perlman, a long-time collaborator of del Toro, enjoys his brief appearance with gusto as a swaggering big-time broker.

While the action scenes in the movie are big and loud as expected, they are visually satisfying with palpable dramatic impact. Thanks to convincing performances and excellent special effects, we can believe the characters are really battling against monsters, and the movie rarely loses the sense of awe and excitement while putting everything into its epic spectacles on the screen. The action scene are dark and 3D glasses is not so recommendable under this condition, but we can see what is going on even at the most frantic moment, and Ramin Djawadi’s electrifying score enhances many action highlights in the film.

Compared to the size of its technical achievement, the story and characters feel small in comparison, but the actors ably fill their roles and support the story. Idris Elba is commanding in his uniform and suits, and you can believe his character’s fierce dedication in spite of his truly silly name. Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi are believable as the partners getting to know each other, and I especially like hyperkinetic Dr. Newton Geiszler(Charlie Day) and fastidious Dr. Herbert Gottlieb(Burn Gorman), a comic duo constantly bickering with each other while studying Kaijus and trying to get any information helpful to them and others by any means necessary.

The director Guillermo del Toro not only excites us but also shares with us his love and passion toward his materials here, and the result is a rare blockbuster film equipped with artistic sensibility and imagination. The movie works both as a sincere and passionate homage and as an enjoyable and competent entertainment, and you may enjoy it even if you are not familiar with its inspirations. This big package is a little too thin for supporting its many visual goodies, but it is a big movie which rightfully deserves to be big, and it does impress us with its jubilant spirit inside its heavy body.

Posted in Movies | Tagged action, Alien, Monster, Robot, SF | 2 Comments

Spring Breakers (2012) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : And then it becomes no fun to them

Posted on July 11, 2013 by kaist455

“Spring Breakers” is a gaudy exercise in callousness and recklessness. All these girls in the movie want is to get out of their boredom, and they certainly get it when they arrive in St. Petersburg, Florida. While usually wearing bikinis or short sleeve tops on their bodies, they carelessly hurl themselves into alcohol, drug, sex, and violence, and we are rather amazed by how far they go just for enjoying themselves.

And then, at some point, the movie goes into a far darker territory under the bleaching sunlight and the lurid night lights of Florida, and we begin to be horrified by what some of them are willing to do without any consideration about the consequence of their actions. Whatever sense of morality or ethics they had, they have already discarded it away, and it seems these young girls do not have any serious thought about the circumstance they are put into even when they have some time to think about it.

They are Candy(Vanessa Hudgens), Brittany(Ashley Benson), Faith(Selena Gomez), and Cotty(Rachel Korine, the director/writer Harmony Korine’s wife). They are college students studying in some university in Kentucky, and we see them waiting for spring break as going through the mundane daily life at their campus. They all look bored during their lectures or meetings, and they are all eager for the freedom outside the campus they will relish during the upcoming spring break.

Spring break finally starts, but it does not look good from the beginning. When they find that they are short of cash despite their savings, Candy, Brittany, and Cotty choose a drastic measure for solving their problem. Wearing ski mask and equipped with hammers and fake guns, they rob a fast food shop and get the money more than they want. You may find this pretty ridiculous because they commit this crime merely for not being the losers remaining in the campus, but haven’t we heard about teenagers committing felony because of petty reasons in these days?

The story soon moves to St. Petersburg, and you see raunchy youthfulness everywhere along with lots of half-naked or nearly naked boys and girls. They drink lots of beer, they sometimes sniff cocaine, and, of course, they have a fun with their nice bodies. The movie naturally features lots of bare body parts throughout its running time, and I must say that it has more breasts and buttocks than Russ Meyer’s immortal trashy film “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”(1970), which was incidentally written by my late friend Roger Ebert and had a memorable line perfect for describing what is shown during the lewd night party scenes of “Spring Breakers”: “This is my happening and it freaks me out!”

If you watched “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”, you probably remember that weird Svengali-like character nicknamed Z-man, and “Spring Breakers” has its own weird charismatic character to be encountered by its girls. He is nicknamed ‘Alien’, and he is memorably played here by James Franco, who gives a striking impression on us right from his first scene with grilled teeth, big sunglasses, and odd, cocky behaviors.

The girls happen to meet him when they are brought to the local court 2 days after being arrested and then jailed for their latest night adventure(they are still wearing bikinis when brought to the court, by the way). He pays their bail, and the girls gladly follow him once they get out of the court. He introduces himself to them as a local drug dealer and a rapper, and the girls are dazzled by his excessive lifestyle represented by a fancy sports car and a big beach mansion whose chief interior decorations are various firearms. Franco has an amusing moment while Alien shows them around his house; when Alien points out his guns one by one, he looks as if he were a gleeful innocent child brandishing his precious toys in front of other kids.

As seduced and cajoled by Alien, the girls find themselves involved in his criminal activities, and that is where the movie takes a darker turn as fueled by Franco’s compelling performance. The situation becomes more serious, but they behaves as if they were playing a fancy game, so we even get a darkly humorous scene where the girls cheerfully prepare their crime with guns and pink ski masks as Alien leisurely plays a Britney Spears song with his piano near them.

The director/writer Harmony Korine handles his story with a stylish but clinical approach, and this approach works in most cases although it looks stylized too much at times due to its heavy use of artificial lights and frequent internal narration. In spite of lots of sensational sights, the movie observes its characters and their transgressive behaviors in a detached view while vividly presenting that loud, hedonistic atmosphere of spring break, and it feels less exploitative than it could have been as a result.

It also has the voice of common sense as a contrast to its superficial decadence, and that comes from Faith, a good Christian girl who increasingly feels that they really should go back to the campus right now. She can overlook the fact that her dear friends committed a robbery because she wants to have a free naked fun along with them, but, especially after encountering Alien, she is disturbed by what’s happening around them – and to them. A small scene between Franco and Gomez looks pretty much like a sleazy pimp persuading his prostitute; she is nervous and really wants to leave, and he slyly appeals to her to change her mind with sweet, persuasive words.

“Spring Breakers” works to some degrees thank to competent direction and good performances. Although they were surely cast because of their physical appearances, four actresses in the movie acquit themselves well as good performers, and Franco is a lot more enjoyable to watch here than his recent appearance in “Oz the Great and Powerful”(2013). I felt distant to its content due to my cultural background, and I did not care much about these shallow and immature characters in the movie, but I could appreciate a sad, bitter feeling at its ending. This is not my definition of fun, but I can admire its style and attitude at least.

Posted in Movies | Tagged College Students, Crime, Criminal, Spring Break | 3 Comments

Campus animals in the evening (2013/07/10)

Posted on July 10, 2013 by kaist455

It is still bright, and they are active as ever despite heat.

Posted in Photos | Tagged Cats, Geese, KAIST | 1 Comment

In the House (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4) : On seductive/dangerous writing

Posted on July 9, 2013 by kaist455

Both frank and deceptive about what it is going to do, “In the House” simultaneously presents two plots and then observes how they roll together – and how they come to manipulate each other. The movie has a dark fun with its tense but playful process, and there are many good reasons not to trust what is presented to us. We know its unreliable storyteller is not entirely trustworthy, but it is curious to see how the plots thicken as interacting with each other, and we gradually become his fellow voyeurs along with his main reader.

His main reader is Monsieur Germain(Fabrice Luchini), a high school literature teacher of Lycée Gustave Flaubert who has just started another usual semester at his school. Some changes in the school including student uniform are brought in this semester, but the daily routine of Germain and other teachers remains same as before. No matter how much he tries to introduce Flaubert or La Fontaine to his students, most of them are not interested in what he wants to teach them, and they do not even care about a simple writing assignment on how they spent their weekend.

While checking his students’ submitted essays with disappointment and disdain as usual, Germain’s interest gets perked up when he comes across an essay a lot better than others’. It is written by a 16-year-old student named Claude Garcia(Ernst Umhauer), and it is about how he insinuated himself into one decent middle-class household during the last weekend. Claude’s classmate Rapha Artole(Bastien Ughetto) looked happy with his loving parents who usually came to the school to pick up their son, and, as a boy belonging to an unhappy household, Claude became interested in how they lived in their house. He approached to Rapha as a kind classmate willing to help him preparing for the upcoming mathematics exam; he soon entered the house, and then he wrote later about what he observed and sensed while he looked around Rapha’s house.

Germain feels something unwholesome from Claude’s writing, but he also finds it both tantalizing and well-written. He has some doubt about its veracity, but, as a failed author, he also recognizes a budding talent from the essay. He is also curious about what will happen next – mainly because he is tantalized by the closing remark “To be continued”.

As a good teacher, Germain encourages Claude to write more while teaching him more about writing in private. Claude keeps submitting his writings, and we get to know more about Rapha and his family through Claude’s view. Rapha’s father(Denis Ménochet), a jovial but rather aggressive man, is busy with some Chinese client of his company, and he and his son are basketball enthusiasts. While they usually watch the big games on TV or play basketball at the local gym together, Mrs. Artole(Emmanuelle Seigner), an attractive housewife, remains a little detached from her family while mainly concentrating on her plan of remodeling their house.

As Germain and his art gallery manager wife Jeanne(Kristin Scott Thomas) are fascinated with the continuing domestic drama within the Artoles, they also wonder about whether it is true or not, and so do we. Rapha does exist as Claude’s schoolmate, and Germain and Jeanne coincidentally meet Mr. and Mrs. Artole later in the story, and they all look exactly same as depicted in the flashback sequences. But is Claude really telling them exactly what he observed from his subjects?

That question does not matter much to the director/adapter François Ozon, for he has lots of fun with how Claude’s story is developed, analyzed, and modified as Claude and Germain spend more time together. There is even a small lecture scene on how story should be developed for holding readers’ attention, and there is also an interesting moment in which the Artoles are depicted with two contrasting approaches as the ‘fictional characters’; they become comic caricatures at first, and then they are changed into a more down-to-earth version after revision. With such acknowledged manipulation, Claude’s story is even developed into an outrageous circumstance worthy of trashy TV soap drama as Claude himself is involved with everyone in the household, and we more wonder about his motive behind his story.

As Claude keeps his story rolling under Germain’s guide, Germain finds himself becoming a crucial part of the story thank to his apt pupil. Not only he is mentioned in the story, but also he becomes a manipulator behind the story, and he even commits a serious violation just for facilitating plot progression. Watching her husband more obsessed with Claude’s story, Jeanne wonders whether there is more than tutorial affection in his encouragement on Claude. Is he just seduced by Claude’s writing? Or…

The movie is based on Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga’s “El Chico de la Ultima Fila”, which means “The Boy in the Last Row”. While opening up the original story on the screen, Ozon gives us a voyeuristic fun of watching the characters as the camera peeping around the Artole household with Claude, and he keeps the tension in the story on constant level through his good cast. Fabrice Luchini and his co-actor Ernst Umhauer hold our attention with the possibly dangerous dynamic between their characters, Bastien Ughetto, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Denis Ménochet are believable in their domestic drama constantly adjusted throughout the movie, and Kristin Scott Thomas provides small amusing moments as her character tries to make her gallery profitable with those profoundly simple modern artworks.

I enjoyed the playful tone of “In the House” and the insidious undercurrent behind it, but I also felt distant about its clever game while watching the characters from the distance just like its main characters did. Like many other stories, the story in the movie eventually comes to a certain inevitable point, and it becomes less fun as a result. Anyway, I was entertained by its seductive progress, and you will probably enjoy the movie if you have ever attended a writing class.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Author, Family, High School, Husband and Wife, Teacher and Pupil, Writing | 3 Comments

Cheer Up, Mr. Lee (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Loser filmmakers’ comic struggle

Posted on July 8, 2013 by kaist455

I enjoyed small funny moments in South Korean mockumentary film “Cheer Up, Mr. Lee”, and that was why I was relatively let down by what was shown around its ending. I know the characters in the movie are not that talented, but it seems they are hopelessly mediocre filmmakers instead of incorrigibly awful ones. Their end product in the movie lacks a comic punch as the finale, and it just drones on and on for around 10 minutes until a short but funnier scene appears and then the end credits follows.

Nevertheless, how these guys struggle for their first opportunity is fun to watch. One of them is Lee Byeon-heon(Hong Wan-pyo), who is absolutely not connected with a well-known South Korean actor Lee Byeong-heon. He is a 30-year-old director/screenplay writer who has not yet made his first movie, and his situation becomes more desperate when he quits his job after a trivial quarrel on the movie set.

Now he may have more time to write his screenplay he has been working on, but he looks pretty lazy in front of the documentary crew following him closely everyday. He drinks with his friends at night, and then he wakes up late in the next morning(or afternoon). He turns on his laptop as soon as he is awake, but it takes at least 7-8 hours for him to set himself on work mode. After cleaning his home, watching some movies(he usually watches bad movies for boosting his confidence), and preparing and eating his dinner, he finally seems to be ready to type something, but he soon goes out for drink again(his average actual work time is less than 1 hour). This cycle goes on and on, and we only see him changing the font of his screenplay title – and he has not written anything yet beside that. Personally, I am relieved to know that I have been quite productive in my recent thesis writing compared to this guy.

Observing Byeon-heon’s endless laziness, the documentary crew behind the camera naturally become frustrated with him a lot. We see them seriously discussing about whether they should change the focus or abort the production, but, surprise, their subject turns out to be not as lazy as they thought; Byeon-heon has somehow completed his screenplay in the end, and, according to a famous South Korean director in cameo appearance, it seems to be fairly good enough to be produced into a successful feature film despite its cheesy title.

As his screenplay goes around several production companies, we come to know more about Byeong-heon’s close friends/colleagues who also have not made a proper debut yet. Kim Beom-soo(Yang Hyeon-min) is a freelancing producer who tries too hard and too much whenever he talks. A rookie cinematographer Rho Seugn-bo(Heo Joon-seok) looks more pragmatic than others, but he is also jobless, so he is always obedient to his dear wife who earns dough instead of him. In case of Kim Yeong-hyeon(Kim Yeong-hyeon), this nameless actor did appear in few movies, but his appearances were very brief and barely recognizable, and nobody is interested in casting him or calling him for audition at present.

When Byeong-heon’s screenplay is finally accepted by some production company, Byeong-heon and his friends are delighted to hear that news and start hoping for the best, but, as some of you know, that does not promise anything to them in fact. After all, filmmaking is business, and the production company begins to check more thoroughly whether Byeong-heon’s screenplay is really profitable from Day 1. They point out flaws and problems. They suggest omissions and revisions. They demand more, and the time quickly passes by as Byeong-heon and others keep discussing and writing during this long pre-production process.

I have no idea about how much the reality of South Korean movie business is reflected in the movie, but I have indirectly heard about young frustrated South Korean filmmakers below the industry through several articles, and the director/screenplay writer Lee Byeong-heon, who previously worked with Kang Hyeong-cheol in “Speed Scandal”(2008) and “Sunny”(2011), gives us a hilarious tragicomedy reflecting that sad reality. With the serene narration by Jo Hyang-gi, its comic scenes are low-key as expected from its mockumentary style, but they will give you lots of laughs as they show the characters as a bunch of losers who will probably never get out of their respective bottoms unless miracle happens. They try, but they get frustrated, and then they drink at night as before, and nothing is changed for them as usual.

It is apparent that Byeong-heon’s struggle in the movie is partially inspired by the director’s personal experience, and the director does not hesitate to make a fun of his fictional self-portrayal. We may sympathize with Byeong-heon’s desperate circumstance, but he is also a petty and pathetic loser who harasses his ex-wife with sudden visit in the middle of night just because he is drunk and he wants to see his little daughter. His ex-wife, who is incidentally not shown in the movie, handles him sensibly, and so does a female employee of the production company, who puts her work first even when she happens to be stuck with two guys in a summerhouse.

The movie loses some of its edges as approaching to its predictable ending during the third act, but it is still an amusing comedy, and I came to feel sorry for these hopeless losers in spite of their unlikable sides. I think the movie could have been more mercilessly funny, but I guess sometimes you have to cheer them up regardless of whether they are really talented or not. At least they keep trying, don’t they?

Posted in Movies | Tagged Comedy, Mockumentary, Movie Director, South Korean Film | Leave a comment

The Lone Ranger (2013) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Meet an overblown oddball western

Posted on July 6, 2013 by kaist455

“The Lone Ranger” has several moments of unadulterated fun although it is messy and uneven on the whole. It is not as bad as some reviewers said, and it is certainly nice to hear William Tell Overture being pumped up on the soundtrack during its spectacular climax sequence, but, as the story schizophrenically swings between seriousness and zaniness, the movie loses its balance amid too many things stuffed into its thin plot. As a matter of fact, the movie is packed too much, and, as getting a little bored due to its uneven pace, I even made a list in my mind for checking those familiar genre elements during my viewing on this Thursday night: desert, plain, rock mountain, mine, Monument Valley, outlaws, rangers, Indians, US Army, drunks, prostitutes, Christians with bible, Chinese workers, train, train station, railroad company, bordello, scorpions, rabbits… and horse dung.

It is not so surprising that the movie also reminds us of many western films, and its opening sequence is clearly influenced by “Little Big Man”(1970). At a country fair in San Francisco, 1933, a young boy wearing Lone Ranger costume enters a quiet, unpopular Wild West exhibition, and he encounters a very old Indian man named Tonto, who tells him the story about how he met a man who would be known as the Lone Ranger during the Wild West era. Even with the heavy make-up making him barely recognizable, Johnny Depp gives another typical offbeat performance, and I and others had no difficulty in recognizing him as watching his character’s odd mannerisms including trying to feed a dead bird he always wears on his head(I dearly hope it no longer smells).

Before Tonto’s ‘great warrior’ became a righteous vigilante wearing mask at the end of their first adventure in 1869, he was a young idealistic lawyer named John Reid(Armie Hammer). When he is returning to his old hometown in Texas to visit his Ranger brother Dan(James Badge Dale, who has recently been quite ubiquitous in these days) and Dan’s wife Rebecca(Ruth Wilson), he has no idea that he is on the same train with a notorious outlaw Butch Cavendish(gleefully nasty William Fichtner), who is being escorted to the town in a separate compartment. With the assistance from his henchmen ready for his arrival, Cavendish quickly escapes right before the train arrives at the town, and that is how Reid meets Tonto, who had been shackled along with Cavendish.

After his brother and others are later killed by Cavendish and his gangs during the search outside the town, Reid, luckily rescued and then nursed by Tonto, is determined to bring Cavendish to the justice. Tonto goes along with him because he sees the signs telling that he should help Reid realize his destiny as a ‘great warrior’ – and he also has his own personal reason to track down Cavendish, which is later revealed through a long flashback scene.

Following their journey, the movie constantly changes its gear among many various modes with a certain degree of wackiness. Sometimes it becomes a ruthless modern western(but its depiction of violence stays in PG-13 area), sometimes it is turned into a quirky comedy between a mismatched duo, and sometimes it bulks itself up into an exciting adventure movie. Various characters are naturally thrown into this busy mix, and some of them are pretty colorful. Reid and Tonto meet a spunky bordello madam in private later in the story, and Helena Bonham Carter has a little fun with her character and her deadly ivory right leg. Some of Cavendish’s dim henchmen are nice comic contrast to Cavendish’s savage acts such as taking out a heart out of his dying victim and then eating it, and Tom Wilkinson brings a little humor to his thankless role as his character’s scheme associated with not only Cavendish but also his railroad company is revealed.

These elements could have worked well together, but they mostly clashed with each other in discord. While it tries to be an innocent fun as its inspiration had been, the movie also tries to be a sort of serious revisionist western through putting more dramatic emphasis on Tonto than Reid, who mainly functions as a straight guy to his bizarre partner. The result is frequently incoherent; one action sequence starts with lightweight comic action, but then it is suddenly hurled into a grim massacre reflecting the cruelty behind the America history. It could have worked if the movie had been more serious, but, in the story featuring silly laughs including an alcoholic horse(he is later named Silver, by the way) and not-so-cute desert rabbits, most of its serious moments feel awkward.

At least, the director Gore Verbinski, who previously made “Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl ”(2003) and its two big sequels and a wonderful western animation “Rango”(2011), keeps his disjointed movie rolling and bouncing. Like many good western films, the movie admires the vast views of its barren landscapes through its camera during many scenes, and its frantic action scenes evoke the fun and joy we got from Indiana Jones films. Yes, they are pretty unrealistic CGI action scenes where no one gets hurt seriously no matter what happens, but they are handled with brash style and exuberant energy, and I did welcome its loony train action sequence which involves two trains rapidly running in parallel.

As an odd couple of the story, Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer are adequate in their contrasting appearances. I personally think Depp should play a little more normal character now after having played so many off-the-wall characters, but he is one of rare actors who are effortless in playing such characters, and he becomes the mask for his character rather than hiding behind the outrageous appearance. Hammer nicely complements Depp’s showy quirkiness with his straight deadpan performance; he is bland at times, but he and Depp have a good comic timing between them, and his performance becomes more enjoyable once his character goes all the way for saving the day.

I am not very familiar with “The Lone Ranger”, and I must say William Tell Overture is still associated with that hilarious sex scene from “A Clockwork Orange”(1971) in my mind, but I had a fairly good time with the movie itself even though I recognized its flaws. The movie could have been shorter and tighter, and, though its budget was not totally wasted, it was really a misguided decision to bloat it into a $250 million blockbuster without considering its relatively limited appeal compared to other blockbuster films. Considering how fabulous “Rango” was, maybe the movie could have worked better as an animation feature film.

At this point, it seems the movie will be one of the biggest box office disasters of this year, and many already compared its imminent failure to that of “John Carter”(2012), another bloated old-fashioned misfire I did not recommend but was willing to defend for many reasons. I cannot recommend this overblown oddball western despite its good things, but, sometimes, a big misfire is more interesting to watch than bland blockbuster films.