Johnny Depp and Jerry Bruckheimer Blame Critics for Lone Ranger Flop

Well, looks like the cry babies are out in force for this one. With Disney set to lose $190 million from the movie's failure, Johnny Depp, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and even Armie Hammer are laying the blame squarely at the feet of the critics' bad reviews.

"I think the reviews were written seven to eight months before we released the film. I think the reviews were written when they heard Gore (Verbinski) and Jerry (Bruckheimer) and me were going to do 'The Lone Ranger.'"  (Depp)

"I think they were reviewing the budget, not reviewing the movie. The audience doesn't care what the budget is- they pay the same amount if it costs a dollar or 20 million dollars...they'll review it in a few years and see that they made a mistake." (Bruckheimer)

"This is the thing with American critics: they've been gunning for our movie since it was shut down the first time. That's when most of the critics wrote their initial reviews. They tried to do the same thing with 'World War Z'- it didn't work, the movie was successful. Instead they decided to slit the jugular of our movie." (Hammer) 

Sounds like a lot of whining to me. Crowds don't pay attention to reviews, for the most part, especially for blockbusters. If they did, would Grown-Ups 2 have just passed $100 million? And I don't know what Hammer's talking about, but the reviews for World War Z weren't nearly as dismal as the ones for The Lone Ranger (which sits at 28% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes versus WWZ's 67%). If they hated it because of its production problems, wouldn't they have slaughtered that movie in the same way? When a movie gets horrible reviews AND it bombs at the box office (clearly word of mouth didn't save it)- don't you have to conclude that the reason might be because you made a shitty movie? Man up, guys.

REVIEW: To the Wonder (2013) Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko. Dir. Terence Malick

Terence Malick's To the Wonder is a pure visual experience, and if you go into it with that mindset, there's a chance you will appreciate the beautiful imagery and long wordless sequences, in the style of a silent film, perhaps. It's meant to evoke feeling, and tell the story through pure emotion, the kind that varies over the course of a relationship when two people fall in love. For some, especially Malick fans, this kind of storytelling will work on you, for others it's bound to be a frustrating experience.

To the Wonder wants to tell the story of a relationship, and evoke the many ebbs and flows of love- you experience the joy, passion, sadness and rapid changing of emotion that occurs as a romance plays out between Olga Kurylenko and Ben Affleck. The movie belongs to Kurylenko though, as she holds the screen with a captivating magnetism- she has all the otherworldly airiness of the best Malick heroines, joining Sissy Spacek, Q'orianka Kilcher and Jessica Chastain before her. Whenever she's in front the camera she compels your attention like nothing else, and poor Ben Affleck gets left by the wayside. He has barely three lines in the movie, often filmed from the back of his head or the side- he's obviously a stand-in for Malick and we're meant to be seeing her through his eyes, but the refusal to give him any kind of a character to play prevents us from fully investing in this relationship. We only ever see her conflicted emotions, attitudes, and internal struggles- and while that makes her character fascinating and intriguing, the other half of this story is lost in the experience.

It also has the unfortunate effect of conveying Affleck's bewilderment in the role. I think he was trying, but completely at a loss as to how to play this part or what he was supposed to be acting. Given that occurrence, it may have been more effective to have even less of him than what we do see, even though he's top billed (and his part was already heavily gutted, I'm sure). In the middle of the film when he embarks on a rebound romance with Rachel McAdams (another limited actress), following a split from Kurylenko, both actors seem utterly befuddled on the screen, and there's a scene where both are staring at an open field that nearly took me out of the film, as I was wondered if either one knew what they were supposed to be doing in this moment.

Luckily, the vast majority of the movie focuses on Kurylenko, who does seem to have a perspective on her character, and the same goes for Javier Bardem in a small but significant role as a priest experiencing a crisis of faith. In his limited screentime he commands our attention and his existential crisis feels authentic and immediate. Malick's trademark narration applies in this film both to Kurylenko and Bardem, but rarely Affleck, which is probably another obstacle holding us at length from his character.

This film was extremely polarizing among critics when released back in April, and that's understandable, as there is no attempt at conventional narrative whatsoever, and as such, it's bound to be limited in its appeal. But Malick fans in particular will be primed to be more open to the idea of storytelling by mood evocation, and the performance of Kurylenko carries you through it, along with the gorgeous cinematography- no one else can make Texas look so good, or feel so vivid and real; Jack Fisk's production design alone is like another character in the film. So there's more than enough to recommend here to a certain audience, and there are moments of ecstatic feeling and wondrous beauty that would be familiar to many Malick lovers, and shouldn't be missed in any case.

* *

BOX OFFICE 8/2-8/4: 2 Guns Tops, Smurfs 2 Disappoints

The Denzel Washington/Mark Wahlberg team-up action movie opened at No. 1 this weekend, even if the opening was a little soft compared to Washington's past genre films. It earned $27 million and a B+ Cinemascore, attracting a mostly male, mostly over 25 crowd that typically attends Denzel Washington's movies. It looks to gross just under $100 million total, which is fine for the $61 million produced film. It was a soft weekend all around, as The Smurfs 2 opened at No. 3 with $18 million ($27 million since Wednesday), and looks to be a disappointment stateside, but the last movie actually did 75% of its business overseas, for a worldwide gross of over $500 million, if you can believe it. So it may actually be fine as it rolls out internationally. The Wolverine fell 59% in its second week, which is typical for the X-Men franchise and looks to end up with about $140 million or so, while The Conjuring held up extremely well again for a total of $108 million so far- a massive success for this $20 million movie, proving that horror films don't have to fall off that huge cliff the second weekend, if you bother to make an actual good one that people are talking about.

Top 5

  1. 2 Guns- $27.4 million
  2. The Wolverine- $21.7 million
  3. The Smurfs 2- $18.2 million
  4. The Conjuring- $13.6 million
  5. Despicable Me 2- $10.4 million

Rounding out the rest of the top ten were Grown Ups 2, Turbo, Red 2, The Heat (which is holding great and has a chance to cross Bridesmaids' $169 million total) and Pacific Rim, which hit $92 million this weekend, and may limp across the $100 million mark in the U.S., but is doing terrific overseas, as I thought it would, with $200 million so far and still set to open in Japan, which could be a huge market for it.

In limited release, The Spectacular Now opened big with $200,000 from just four theaters in NY/LA, while Blue Jasmine expanded to 48 screens and grossed over $2 million from them, which indicates that it could be a crossover hit, similar to Midnight in Paris a couple of years ago. Next week Elysium and Disney's Planes face off against mid-week openings We're the Millers and Percy Jackson: The Sea Monsters for a more crowded weekend than this one.