Gore Verbinski is a vibrant visual director, but the casting of Armie Hammer as John Reid aka The Lone Ranger, doesn’t do the film any good, and the whitewashing of Tonto with the casting of Johnny Depp makes things worse.

There are some wonderful sequences, some great images, and some fun comedic moments, as the film gallops from set piece to set piece, but the film needed a stronger John Reid and a Native American Tonto.

This time around, John Reid, still a lawyer, returns to Colby, Texas on the same train that the villainous cannibalistic outlaw, Cavendish (William Fichtner) and an imprisoned Comanche, Tonto. Things get wild from there, as we learn John is in love with his brother, Dan’s (James Badge Dale) wife, Rebecca (Ruth Wilson).

This version of Reid is a bit of a goof, and lacks the conviction of earlier iterations, while Tonto is darker, which serves the character nicely, but that casting…

As usual, Cavendish’s gang ambushes the rangers that are pursuing them and John is the only one to survive, rescued by Tonto, and a white horse, Silver (arguably the best character in this new iteration of the trio), that may or may not have mystical abilities. In fact, the film brushes against a number of mystical moments as Tonto insists nature is out of balance.

What follows is a sprawling Western epic that is a little too long, especially since Hammer isn’t engaging enough to help carry a film, packed with some solid visuals, and action beats.

The film is packed with familiar actors from Tom Wilkinson to Harry Treadway to Helena Bonham Carter to Barry Pepper, and when they are on the screen, the film is imminently watchable, Hammer just weighs it down.

There’s a convoluted plot involving silver, the railroad, and faking Comanche attacks on civilian homesteads, but of course, our heroes will find their inner strength, and answer the call of justice, becoming who they were destined to be.

There are a lot of goofy moments, some are played out great, but some are simply there for the laugh, and don’t do anything for the characters except diminish them. Yes, there should be some melodrama in a film like this, but let’s make it work within the context of the narrative.

It’s definitely better than the film I watched earlier this week, but it raises the question of whether or not there’s been a good Lone Ranger since Clayton Moore?

Yes, the story is more than a little melodramatic, but it also has become an American legend, an icon of a Wild West that never existed in the way it’s been portrayed, a commentary on justice, truth, brotherhood, and honour. It just hasn’t found the right portrayal onscreen yet.

It needed a better Ranger, and a non-white Tonto to make this a more cohesive and enjoyable film. Let’s leave the property alone for another couple of decades, and then see what we can do with it then.