Plenty of boring dirt in Rango, but overall Depp's delight and the classic movies homage makes it a marginal recommendation!

Rating: 7/10 (5 March 2011)

"Rango Rango Man, I have to see that Rangoman" I said to myself several times in anticipation of the next Johnny Depp starring vehicle "Rango". The trailers of this computer-animated movie looked enticing. Come on, Johnny Depp voicing a bug-eyed, fast-talking lizard! How could it miss? But after seeing "Rango", I must say that I am a bit disappointed. "Rango" does delight in playing homage to classic movies such as "Apocalypse Now", "2001: A Space Odyssey", and the infamous "man with no name" Eastwood westerns. But what "Rango" dangles primarily on is on its dull narrative. Our protagonist Rango is a lizard drifter (aren't we all?,whatever that means) who ends up in the animal western-town of Dirt. The Mayor of Dirt (voiced by Ned Beatty) does plenty of dirty deeds done first cheap by stealing the town's water for greedy investment purposes; or something like that. That watered-down plot line did stray my attention; it's not like I was watching "Chinatown". Rango falls for Beans (voiced by Isla Fisher), a "looks like a lizard but I cannot make what it is" Dirt animal female who is suspicious of the Mayor's actions and wants to keep the land of her deceased father. Rango, with his wit and fast-talk, ends up convincing most of the town animal residents of Dirt that he is a skilled killer & fighter. The Dirt animals love Rango, he is to them one rocking Rango Star! Rango is then appointed Sheriff and his first sherrify task at hand is to save the Dirt town from being waterless due to their droughtarama. Predictability then ensues as Rango gets into hot water when his Dirt followers found out that he has been deceiving them all this time. Writer John Logan must have not gone into a profuse analytical Logan's writing run with Rango's formulaic script; and to make it worse he even included way too much dialogue incomprehensible for children; who let's face it, is the major demographic target audience of "Rango" . It appeared to me that Director Gore Verbinski was trying too hard to guide the film with unorthodox elements. Gore, this is not "The Lizards of the Non-Caribbean: The Curse of the Amphibian World"! However, what rang in quietly nicely in "Rango" was the stellar talent of Johnny Depp as "Rango". I could not envision any other actor but Depp giving "Rango" his character justice. "Rango" is a lizard tale that lounges around most of the time, but is salvaged by Depp and that classic movies' homage. *** Average