Josh Reviews Rango
I had a chance last month to see Rango, the new film by Gore Verbinski (who most recently helmed the three Pirates of the Caribbean films). Johnny Depp voices the titular Rango, a lonely but imaginative chameleon. In the opening minutes of the film we see that Rango, living alone in the small glass box owned by a suburban family, has dealt with his solitude by inventing an enormously rich inner life for himself. But his carefree life of imagination is violently interrupted by a car-accident that leaves him stranded on his own by the side of the road. Rango eventually makes his way into a tiny town called Dirt, populated by a motley assortment of animals. Through some good luck, Rango manages to kill a hawk that’s been menacing the town, and so finds himself appointed sheriff. But that quickly puts him in conflict with the sinister forces attempting to control the town for their own devices, and Rango will need more than just imagination to keep his head attached to his shoulders and, just maybe, save the town and win the girl.
Rango is a slight, though endearing, fairy-tale fable of the Old West. All of the familiar Western archetypes are there, just pleasantly twisted by having the roles played by various animals. The film is chock-full of references to other movies. There’s the over-all Chinatown plot, of course (no incest, just a businessman attempting to use a drought to his own nefarious purposes), along with a ton of little winks and nods to various other cowboy films. (Many of which, I’m sure, went right over my head, since I can’t say that my knowledge of westerns is that deep.) These aren’t really in-your-face gag-references, like you’d see in the Shrek films. Thank heaven for that! No, these are more subtle references that add a fun layer of texture to the film’s story. (Well, mostly subtle. The character who portrays the Spirit of the West is just who you’d expect it to be. But that scene is still so much fun that I couldn’t possibly complain.)
Rango is the first feature-length animated film produced by George Lucas’ incredible visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic. As such, no surprise, it looks incredible. The film has a very different look from that of the Pixar films — the stylization of the animation leans less towards cartoony simplification and more into hyper-detailed weirdness. That’s not to say it looks better or worse than a Pixar film — just that it looks different. And, again, thank heaven for that! Pixar is not going to ever be beaten at its own game, so it was wise of the artists at ILM to go in a different direction.
And when I say that the film leans towards the weird-looking, I wasn’t kidding! The character-designs in Rango are wonderfully loony. The film is populated by some of the most bizarre-looking animated animal characters I’ve ever seen on screen. It’s a real hoot!
Johnny Depp does a solid, sympathetic job as the naive but adventurous Rango. Isla Fisher (The Wedding Crashers) is a terrific match with him as Beans, the bright, inquisitive iguana who catches Rango’s eye (and who is singularly unimpressed by the little lizard). There are a lot of fun, familiar faces who fill out the supporting cast: Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Timothy Olyphant, Ray Winstone, and more. I was particularly happy to hear the great Ned Beatty, who voices the town’s mayor. (He actually plays a very similar role to his character in The Killer Inside Me — read my review here — though he has a much larger part to play in this film.) I love Mr. Beatty’s work, and I’m glad to see him popping up in a number of different films these days. (You probably enjoyed his work as the villainous Lotso in Toy Story 3 — read my review here.) I hope that continues. He’s able to gracefully combine southern charm with real menace, and it serves him well in this performance.
There’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about Rango. It doesn’t reach the heights of comedy or the emotional depth of the recent batch of Pixar films, and the story treads pretty familiar ground. It’s a film that I really enjoyed, but there’s nothing about it that will prompt me to rush out and buy in on DVD in a few months to watch again. So consider this a positive review, but not by any means a rush-out-and-see-this (if it’s even still playing anywhere near you) exhortation.