A beautifully ugly tale

Rating: 8/10 (13 April 2011)

Rango is the first fully computer animated film from the special effects production company, Industrial Light and Magic. They enter an arena occupied by two well known heavy weights, Pixar and Dreamworks. Fair to say, ILM definitely have a hit on their hands. Director, Gore Verbinksi has made some very successful films (Mousehunt, The Ring, all the Pirates Of The Caribbean films) and this is his first foray into animation. Rango is a pretty different type of kids film. Firstly, a lot of the images and violence would probably scare the daylights out of kids under ten, and a lot of the film references and themes would go unnoticed by the young. A lot of work has gone into creating characters that look incredibly real. Each mole and hair is carefully detailed and gives the film a unique texture. The overall design is beautifully ugly. It creates an amazingly detailed desert world where everything is incredibly dry and dirty, and it captures it all in a stylish and creative way. On top of having some of the greatest animation around it also boasts a great voice cast. Johnny Depp's charm and quirkiness comes through in voicing Rango and Isla Fisher throws her Aussie accent away for an American Cowgirl voice to create her character, (Rango's love interest) Bean. Alfred Molina, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy and Timothy Olyphant also add their voice talents. Those that are familiar with/like westerns will be overloaded with the amount of film references. On occasion, it even comes across as slightly smug and annoying with the amount of 'look-how-smart-we-are' moments there are. Also, the story is not really original and it doesn't really carry the emotional weight that Pixar films do. Still, this fun and smart animated western has a hell of a lot going for it.