Wow, a Western that didn't suck!

Rating: 7/10 (10 March 2012)

Not being a fan of Westerns, having been bored by a film in the last year that even introduced aliens into the mix and still not capturing my attention, you can imagine my tentativeness to sit through "Rango." However, I was surprisingly impressed by the oddness of it all.
"Rango," a film clearly more directed at adults more than children, is an amusing look at a chameleon named Lars who is mistakenly dropped off a car in the middle of the desert who finds himself in Dirt, a stereotypical Western town in the middle-of-nowhere. Fearing the lawlessness of the town, a convenient lie enraptures Lars in a heroic quest to find water for the town before it dries up completely after a faked act of heroism leads the townsfolk to believe he is Rango, fearless and worthy of being town sheriff.
After a few missteps by Johnny Depp, who voices the titular character, he finally found an entertaining way to deliver his almost-too-obvious quirkiness of late.
Still not on the level of some of the great animated features of the last twenty years, "Rango," which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, is definitely the best offering the genre had to offer in 2011. Hell, if it won this Western-hating sceptical over, John Logan's script must have done something right, if not Gore Verbinski's wonderful direction.