Chinatown: Set in "the west", but where the good guy wins, and sans in**st

Rating: 8/10 (22 March 2011)

My feelings are a little mixed, but you have to reflect a little and give credit where credit is due.
Hands down: The producers reached out to folks like me who insist on good writing. Certainly they must have known they'd alienate large chunks of the ticket-buying polity who are put off by verbal finery, in much the same way they're put off by Bach: Too many notes. I'd be very, very curious to know the percentage of Rango's viewers who'd previously seen Chinatown. I'd guess 10%--and that's 5% happenstance, and 5% film buffs drawn in by word-of-mouth.
They pulled a lot of stops to make Rango happen, and you have to at least tip your hat to that. There are story artists who feel a story, but also enjoy fine language, irony, and the cerebral contextualization of narrative. Ratatouille was a good example of the best that this can be; and kudos to Disney for evolving and recognizing this as the future of grand animation storytelling. The head doesn't have to be the enemy of the heart.
Well, Rango seems to want to take this a step further. And in so doing, it might have tipped its hand a little too far and spoiled the feeling. There are long stretches of characters ambling across barren landscapes, exchanging barbs, witticisms, and naive pronouncements. Do people go to cartoons to wait for Godot? If they sometimes do, then the next question is: Is it worth the wait? In Rango, it rather is. Certain messages are delivered, the most important of which is: It's possible to get stuck in a personal storyline; an internal narrative with the power to entrance and delight in the short term, but ultimately powerless in the face of real world forces. And some of these forces are evil, and facing off these forces requires genuine heroism. And real heroism must break the chains of mere story. Only then can it become mythic in scope, and succeed.
Rango does this, but you're going to have to wait for Godot for a spell. If you're not ready to do that, then you're going to be disappointed. But if you're patient and cool, who knows *what* you'll find in McElligot's Pool!