Film Genre Features and Conventions

Hybrid Sci-Fi Thriller
- Dystopian
- Extraterrestrial life
- Alternative possible worlds or futures
- Aliens with advanced technology 
- High levels of anticipation 
- Unsure of the outcome
- Fast Paced
- Tense, Dramatic music
- Lighting to create a sense of surrealism 
- Families being separated and brought back together

why ‘The Lone Ranger’ was considered to be a box-office failure

‘The Lone Ranger’, directed by Gore Verbinski, starring Johnny Depp, was destined to be a ‘box-office bomb’ in the UK, due to its low ratings and bad reviews from USA film critics. Depp blames the failure of the film, on the ‘poor reviews’, which he thinks were written seven to eight months before the film was released. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer says “I think they were reviewing the budget, not reviewing the movie.” So could the failure of ‘The Lone Ranger’ be down to America’s harsh critics scaring the public viewers away?

According to TheIndependent.co.uk ‘The film is regarded as the come-uppance for director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer after their run of success with ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies.’ With them saying this it provides us with another reason why ‘The Lone Ranger’ was said to be ‘a flop’. Due to the public and critics viewing of the highly rated ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ films, their expectations were set way to high and left them disappointed when ‘The Lone Ranger’ didn’t reflect the same standards as the phenomenal ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies.

Despite all the bad critique and poor reviews, ’The Lone Ranger’ still gave many viewers and critics something to rave about.  From multiple reviews and ratings posted on the website, RottenTomatoes.com gives ‘The Lone Ranger’ an average rating of ‘3.5/5’ and states that ‘60%’ of audiences said they liked the film. However there are just as many good reviews as there are bad. According to MaryAnn Johanson, a critic who posted on RottenTomatoes.com, ‘The Lone Ranger’ was ‘Limp, lifeless, overlong and undercooked’. Here Johanson brings to light another reason why the film may have flopped.

Summer 2013 has brought some great movies and blockbuster hits to our screens. ‘Despicable me 2’, ‘Iron man 3’ and ‘Monsters university’ are just 3 of many feature length films that have been released this summer. Most have left a very high standard for the following film releases to live up to. However, ‘The Lone Ranger’, which was one of those following movies, doesn’t seem to have reached that mark. According to screenrant.com ‘the heavily subscribed release schedule has left a few casualties in its wake.’ These casualties include ‘The Lone Ranger’ amongst other movies released in summer 2013. Due to the amount of great movies released in such a tight period of time some movies got pushed aside and knocked under the shadows of other higher rated films. Timing of release seems to have contributed to the lack of interest when it came to the public viewings of ‘The Lone Ranger’.

The team behind Disney’s ‘The Lone Ranger’ was given a budget of $250million to bring the film back to life after the movie was shut down for the first time in 2011. The studio decided to ‘revive’ the project; however they only managed to re-coop a small fraction of the Money they spent when it was released in July 2013. It seems the lack of returns and profits put people off going to watch the movie.

Screenrant.com claims that ‘The reasons behind The Lone Ranger‘s drastic under-performance are difficult to pin down.’ And they are right. It is hard to just lay the entire blame on one factor. However there are so many factors that add to the harsh but realistic fact that ‘The Lone Ranger’ flopped.

My favourite film of summer 2013

In 2001, Disney released Monsters Inc. The film at the time was said to be one of Disney’s greatest achievements. After watching the film for the first time, I can always remember thinking that I wanted more. Every time I watched it I didn’t want it to end. I was so engrossed in the movie; I just wanted it to carry on. Twelve years later, in 2013, the long awaited prequel; Monsters University came to the big screen. Although Monsters University wasn’t a follow-on story from the first movie, the prequel tells how Sully and Mike became such good friends and also why Randle despised of the pair so much. I think that’s what gave the film the ‘must see’ factor for me.

The main reason why I really liked this film was because of its pure, clean-cut quality! From the animation it’s self to the vibrancy and colours that made the film so appealing. I really can’t fault it. Every detail had been thought out so deeply, the film wasn’t too long or too short, the storyline was constantly entertaining and the mood of the film changed so frequently, from highs to lows that it kept me on the edge of my seat. I can honestly say I did not take my eyes of the screen for a single second!

Closely followed by DreamWorks, Disney’s animations are my favourite. The reason why is because, Disney produce so many high quality, animated films, that never fall short of peoples expectations, just like Monsters University which was destined for success. There’s just something magical about every movie that Disney produce and that’s why I loved Monsters University so much. It’s all about that ‘warm fuzzy’ magical feeling and wanting to be apart of the movie.

When watching any film I always look for the subliminal messages and the morals behind the storylines. Monsters University teaches you that everybody is equal and even if you are just the ‘Out cast’ you shouldn’t let anybody stand in your way just like mike didn’t. Another Moral to the ‘Monsters University’ story is, even though everybody around you seems to be some what better than you, don’t ever stop being yourself.

Another aspect of Monsters University that I liked was the little elements carried through from the first film into this one. For example, Mike always gets his face cut out of photos in the first movie, which he doesn’t seem to be bothered about, in fact he’s so ecstatic, I don’t think he really cares. They carried that through into the next movie with mikes photo on his student card. Also in the first movie, the warm up mike does with sully every morning is actually what mike used to train his ‘O.K’ team back in University for ‘The Scare Games’.

All in all, Monsters University has been my favourite film of summer 2013. It made me laugh, it had me on the edge of my seat, I had been waiting for the film for twelve years and it was so much better than I expected it to be, even though I had already set my standards high anyway. In my opinion, Monsters University is an A-class, five star movie.