A Wonderful Western with Mature Themes, Brilliant Music, Colourful Characters and Great Animation

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2015)

What do you get if you cross Johnny Depp,with a lizard and a trippy journey with Western homages in a huge leap for the animation industry? Well, you would get the strangest punchline ever. That is basically Rango. A series of incredible shots and angles by Direvtor Gore Verbinski, as well as tributes to the greats such as Chinatown, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Hills Have Eyes, Apocalypse Now and even the strange and bizarre Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with the added cameo of Raoul Puke. The film follows a pet chameleon who falls out of the back of a car in a road accident and runs into an armadillo who directs hi, to the town of Dirt, a small settlement in the middle of the Mojave desert in Nevada. There he meets a host of other creatures like the fiery tongued, intelligent female iguana, Beans, an adorable cactus mouse Priscilla who is obsessed with death and many others all of whom are tough, adapted and not so trusting of strangers- until he spins a lie that he is a hero of the West named Rango, through his love of character acting and thespians. However, becoming the town's new sheriff isn't as fun and rewarding as most would think. The regular thugs such as Bad Bill the gila monster and his furry gang, and a clan of water thieves as well as the dangerous outlaw Rattlesnake Jake threatening to come to town, Rango has his work cut out for him. On top of solving the town's drought problem, finding a way for Beans to keep her ranch and convincing his new friends he's as tough as he talks he must also go on a journey of self discovery and break his existential crisis and live up to his new identity.
Rango is a fantastic film for many reasons. The animation to begin with is just Gorgeous. Beautifully done with it's realistic detail in fur, scales, facial expressions and setting. The actors for the film actually came in to the studio for 20 days to act out some of the scenes with costumes and props so the animators could use it as a reference-but this is far from the awkward and slightly disturbing method of motion capture that we've seen in films such as Polar Express and Mars Needs Moms. It's the movement and facial expressions that make the characters look so live action and yet so cartoony. The main character himself is not a good role model, but he isn't a bad one either. He lies, makes bad choices but it's usually not his intent. He is just trying to find out who he is. The love interest Beans is a sharp and clever lead with a soft side. A rancher who is prone to a "defence mechanism" of catatonia which is common in many lizards. She and Rango share the usual banter especially as she views him as very untrustworthy and a bit of a wuss at first before warming up to him after some days together with a posse on the hunt for water bandits. The side characters are memorable and funny. Anthropomorphic animals such as toads, chickens, frogs, lizards, rabbits, squirrels, owls, mice moles and rats who all have their moments. The main villain is the turtle Mayor John who wants to control the water for his own intentions. The real treat is the incredibly amazing gun-slinger Rattlesnake Jake, who's appearance is based off of Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes. From his slithering movements, hellfire eyes, Gatling gun rattle and an awesome black hat, Jake's reveal is brilliantly done, with the added poison honey of Bill Nighy using a similar technique from his Davy Jones role in Pirates of the Caribbean. The shots in this movie are beautiful. From the setting sunsets to the time lapse of dusk to night to the close ups of opening and closing cactus flowers and our character walking solemnly against a bright silver full moon. The themes Rango takes on are heavy and sometimes overly adult. I would NOT recommend this as a movie for young children. I would say 12 and up is a suitable age, as it leans more towards a teen and adult audience. It's a PG but honestly I would rate it 12a or PG-13. There are LOTS of violent scenes with guns, threats and attacks as well as a knife being pulled at one point. Although no blood is shown you keep expecting them to take that road. There is also swearing, minor like "damn," "hell" "shit" "son of a bitch," but it's not too frequent. There are also some sexual references and anatomical words used as well as a sign reading "Soiled Dove" an obvious yet subtle reference to the brothels of the Old West. There are scenes of drinking and smoking as well as spitting but, hey. It's the old west and it wouldn't be a western without those things. I congratulate every single person who worked on Rango, and I eagerly await a sequel if one is in the works.