It's Fun For All Ages

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2012)

Rare is the animated feature that will be of appeal to ages 6 to 96, but "Rango" seems to have accomplished that balance rather nicely. Kudos to all who were involved with this production, but especially to the animators. The animation in this was absolutely brilliant. While it's obvious that walking and talking animals are animated, the details of the Town of Dirt and the desert landscape take on a definite sense of reality. In those scenes where there are no characters on screen it would be very easy to forget that this is in fact an animated feature.
The story has something for everyone. Basically, this is a Western in animated form. Rango is a pet chameleon who as a result of a car accident gets separated from his family on a highway in the middle of the desert. Being a domestic animal, he has no idea what to do or how to survive until a helpful armadillo tells him the direction to a nearby town where he should be able to get water. Stumbling across the desert, he finally comes across the small Town of Dirt, populated entirely by animals of various sorts. Struggling to fit in, he spins a few yarns about himself and his adventures and where he came from, and he ends up quite accidentally as a local hero and as the local sheriff who suddenly has to confront the town's great mystery - the water supply is quickly disappearing.
The details of the story are really oriented far more toward adults than children, and those who let children watch this should know going in that there's some mildly harsh language and a few scenes that might be frightening for little ones. But they'll enjoy the animation. Kids love animated animals - and all ages will enjoy some of the action sequences in the movie, which - like the rest of the animation - is very well done, and quite believable.
I thought this weakened perhaps a bit in the last half hour or so. At that point (really, with the introduction of Jake the Rattlesnake, who was as the rest very well animated, but who was also a rather menacing character) a lot of the fun of the movie disappeared, and it actually became a rather heavy story toward the end. The ultimate moral of the story is that Rango has to find himself and be himself. In the end, once the reason for the disappearing water supply becomes obvious, there's also a bit of an environmental message, but it wasn't preachy at all, and for the most part it was very entertaining. (7/10)