An Underrated Masterpiece!!!

Rating: 10/10 (10 August 2011)

Rango- 2011 Wow. Just pure love was poured into the western genre with this film! From the opening credits resembling Ennio Morricone's score from the classic Spaghetti Westerns to the intro with the singing Mariachis doing the Corrido about Rango the western legend, this movie was one of the most fun moments I ever had! The plot even centers on the fact that the western legends are forgotten and replaced with modernization, but the fact is that legends never die. The references to Fear and Loathing with even Depp resembling his fast talking performance of Duke, which in my opinion was his best performance so I'm not complaining and is a breath of fresh air from seeing his Sparrow impersonations in Alice and Tourist, and a couple of endless references to classic westerns that I probably missed. The ones I caught were the Tuco reference with the Toad yelling like Tuco yelled at Blondie at the end of Good Bad and Ugly, the little girl resembling the girl from True Grit, the man with no name being the Spirit of the West was beyond priceless, score resembling Ennio Morricone's score from the Dollars Trilogy and Once Upon a Time in the West, and the snake resembling Lee Van Cleef to name a few, I'm pretty sure there are more!! The movie had hilarious moments that resembled Chuck Jones cartoons without resorting to pop culture references, looking at you Shrek, like the scene where Rango eats the cigarette and then blows fire to the lizard's face, animated in a way that resembled classic slapstick cartoon humor that I missed from animated features. It reminded me of An American Tail for today with the same type of love and effort that was probably put into this film. A must buy for Western fans and animation fans!!