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#276 - Rango
Gore Verbinski, 2011
A sheltered yet theatrical chameleon winds up lost in the middle of the desert and soon becomes the hero of a town in the middle of a drought.
It's sad how Rango is so clearly hamstrung by the whole Hero's Journey narrative that it almost off-sets the fun caused by the film's bizarre array of influences and references. Ostensibly a homage to Westerns (mainly those of the "spaghetti" variety, though some of the visuals would suggest an acid influence), the film follows a chameleon (Johnny Depp) who has spent his life alone in a glass case inventing characters and stories to stave off boredom. Things change when his case falls out the back of a station wagon on a desert highway and soon finds his way into a typical Western small town that's populated by a variety of animals. It turns out that the town is running out of water and the inhabitants soon turn to this fanciful out-of-towner (who makes up a heroic back-story for himself) for help.
What follows is a feature film worth of cartoon shenanigans that aren't altogether family friendly. There are some off-kilter lines of dialogue here and there plus a number of shout-outs that even threaten to spoil the film at times. Depp delivers an extremely over-the-top performance as the titular lizard who bluffs his way through all sorts of dangerous situations - though you may already be tired of Depp getting into all sorts of humourous escapades in other films, here he's actually rather decent (though it probably helps that he's a lizard this time). The supporting cast fill out the cast of stereotypes reasonably well. The various sequences featuring action and comedy are pretty par for the course as far as Western animated films go but are not bad by any means. Rango seems like it should have been the kind of modern animated film that I'd have loved outright with its clever use of parody and off-beat approach to its material, but it still just manages to be merely alright. Having moments of considerable creativity be undone a bit by a plot that's extremely predictable even by family film standards is quite a shame, but I still like it enough. Hopefully it'll grow on me, but that's probably unlikely. Still, consider it recommended anyway.
Gore Verbinski, 2011
A sheltered yet theatrical chameleon winds up lost in the middle of the desert and soon becomes the hero of a town in the middle of a drought.
It's sad how Rango is so clearly hamstrung by the whole Hero's Journey narrative that it almost off-sets the fun caused by the film's bizarre array of influences and references. Ostensibly a homage to Westerns (mainly those of the "spaghetti" variety, though some of the visuals would suggest an acid influence), the film follows a chameleon (Johnny Depp) who has spent his life alone in a glass case inventing characters and stories to stave off boredom. Things change when his case falls out the back of a station wagon on a desert highway and soon finds his way into a typical Western small town that's populated by a variety of animals. It turns out that the town is running out of water and the inhabitants soon turn to this fanciful out-of-towner (who makes up a heroic back-story for himself) for help.
What follows is a feature film worth of cartoon shenanigans that aren't altogether family friendly. There are some off-kilter lines of dialogue here and there plus a number of shout-outs that even threaten to spoil the film at times. Depp delivers an extremely over-the-top performance as the titular lizard who bluffs his way through all sorts of dangerous situations - though you may already be tired of Depp getting into all sorts of humourous escapades in other films, here he's actually rather decent (though it probably helps that he's a lizard this time). The supporting cast fill out the cast of stereotypes reasonably well. The various sequences featuring action and comedy are pretty par for the course as far as Western animated films go but are not bad by any means. Rango seems like it should have been the kind of modern animated film that I'd have loved outright with its clever use of parody and off-beat approach to its material, but it still just manages to be merely alright. Having moments of considerable creativity be undone a bit by a plot that's extremely predictable even by family film standards is quite a shame, but I still like it enough. Hopefully it'll grow on me, but that's probably unlikely. Still, consider it recommended anyway.