'The Lone Ranger' Still Isn't Really That Exciting

Something still seems off about The Lone Ranger: Wednesday brought another—and very lengthy—trailer for Disney's Johnny Depp-starring summer blockbuster, and there's more story now, but there's still not a whole lot of there out there in the Old West. The trailer builds up the action that sets the plot in motion: Armie Hammer's John Reid becomes a Texas Ranger with his brother, who is subsequently killed. He teams up with Depp's Tonto to seek revenge, and they go forth to encounter all kinds of baddies and ruthless people. Helena Bonham Carter has a shoe-gun. There are a lot of battles on trains. A lot, it seems. (For a more complete description of the plot, go to Yahoo.)

As our Richard Lawson remarked way back when the first teaser trailer, there's cause for concern. And that concern remains. Depp's Tonto performance still strikes us as a kind of mess of stereotypes, no matter the good intentions that he tried to illustrate during Yahoo's Q&A this afternoon. ("The goal was, in my own small way, to right the many wrongs that has been done to those people," Depp said.) Besides that, the whole thing, down to the accents, comes off as a little hokey, despite the huge production value. 

We could be wrong, though. Those at the CinemaCon conference in Las Vegas got a taste of extended footage, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, at least one formerly wary exhibitor was impressed. But you're allowed to be suspicious.