Meta-Western...

Rating: 5/10 (13 October 2011)

"Rango" is a fascinating oddity: a meta-Western, heavily larded with irony, sarcasm, cliché, and adult sensibilities, couched in an animated film format that uses the time-honored (some might venture to say "time-worn") plot structure of a movie for children. There's little doubt that the movie possesses technical brilliance; the animation is dazzling and dazzlingly executed, as one would expect from this first, animated feature out of Industrial Light and Magic. Director Gore Verbinski keeps the film zipping along at breakneck speed and the longueurs are infrequent. BUT... for all its not inconsiderable entertainment value, "Rango" doesn't quite succeed as a movie. The problem lies primarily in its unsettling disjunction between message and medium. "Rango" sounds like a children's movie, looks like a children's movie, but isn't a children's movie. It attempts to encapsulate the naiveté and wonder that are the distinctive hallmarks of childhood, but constantly undercuts those qualities by its heavy use of ironic, self-reflecting commentary. Adults viewing it will enjoy toting up the movie's clever samplings of "oater" cliché from time immemorial. Their enjoyment of it will be magnified by their knowledge of "High Noon" and other western flicks. Children, who -- for the most part -- lack that cinematic context, won't get it. And, since the movie derives much of its generative power from that context, children seeing "Rango" will have to fall back on the action chase sequences and the toilet humor for enjoyment. I suppose, given the impoverished level of much of what passes for "children's entertainment" these days, that may be enough for some kids. But I suspect the makers of "Rango" were after something better and I wish their "grasp" had lived up to their "reach." It's a shame, but I'd guess that many adult movie-goers (who would enjoy the flick, if they saw it) will bypass "Rango," thinking it a children's movie; many children will see the movie and come away from it confused about what it means, however (briefly) entertained they may have been by its gaudy mayhem. "Rango," in brief, would be a better movie if its movie-makers had been less concerned with showing off how clever and cutting-edge they were and more concerned with how best to tell their story in ways that were both appropriate to and apprehensible by their intended audience. With an "A" for effort and technical achievement, "Rango," alas, only merits an overall, ungentlemanly "C."