THE LONE RANGER - 2 nominations

THE LONE RANGER

Makeup and Hairstyling - Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny
Visual Effects - Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams and John Frazier

The Lone Ranger might be the easiest of all the films with nominations to describe and review because I'm going to cut right to the chase.  We all basically know the story, and this movie is the Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) and his Native American sidekick Tonto's (Johnny Depp) origin story.  Together, they ride the desert chasing a bad guy until they discover that his evil ways may just be a part of a larger, more corrupt, injustice.

Sounds like a great legend story, right?  Yeah, not this time.  It sucked.  It sucked so so badly.  After watching the first hour and a half, I almost gave up when I realized that there was another full hour to go.  But given how little had happened at that point showcasing either visual effects or makeup and hairstyling, I thought perhaps if I hung in there, I'd have a deeper (any?) understanding of how this film got two nominations.  For OSCARS.

I'm pretty sure the makeup rode the coattails of the hairstyling for the nomination because at least some of that was quite interesting, but keeping Johnny Depp looking like a Native American the entire movie probably took some effort.  (Don't ask me why they couldn't find a single Native American actor to play the part, but that's a question for another time.)  The visual effects were fine and there were some cool ones with train explosions, but I would hardly call this film a visual effects achievement.

I'm again going to note that the Makeup and Hairstyling category has some pretty weak competitors this year.  With only three nominees, one would think that they could identify a couple of better options that do more than make an interesting design on one person's face or age a young person to look old - both of which have been done in zillions of movies for dozens of years.  When you put the visual effects up against any of the other nominees, it's almost an insult to the category that this film is included in the list.

All in all, a true disappointment both as a movie and as a two-Oscar nominee.

Haven't seen the film?
Watch The Lone Ranger Movie Trailer