Review: Rango

Draws First, and Misses By A Hair...

It’s still ‘Western’ month, so we thought we’d mix things up with a very unique western that pays homage to the genre in a way animated films rarely do. And the last place we expected to find such a film is in a mainstream Nickelodeon production starring the radioactive tranny from Alice in Wonderland and directed by the dude who made the most marketable pirate movie of the last decade. On that front at least, Rango deserves an honorable mention for trying something different. Of course the higher you leap, the harder you fall.

Story: A nameless lizard’s (Johhny Depp) lonely existence is turned upside down when his glass case falls out of a moving car in the harsh Nevada desert. A fluke accident turns him into a hero for a dying desert town full of furry critters desperate for water. Now named Rango and crowned Sheriff, our hero embarks on a strange, wonderful (though sometimes repetitive) journey to become the savior the town has been looking for, and learns something about his true self along the way.

Review: The first thing that strikes you about Rango is just how visually stunning it is. The first completely animated feature from George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic (the same folks that gave us the freakish liquid man in Terminator II and the terrifying dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies), Rango is a film with a very distinct visual style that immediately sets itself apart from every other animated film out there. Be it the surreal, photorealistic landscapes, the crooked, wart covered lizard that forms our titular hero, or the gravity defying action sequences, this is a film that refuses to follow conventions. That is, until it finally does. It is ironic that where the movie succeeds most is in delighting movie geeks like yours truly with surreal visuals and delightful nods to cult classics all the way from Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas to The Big Lebowski and Chinatown, it fails most spectacularly when it leans back on to convention and tries audience pleasing vanilla humor and corny sight gags that would find a more welcoming home in more banal fare like the Shrek films (think ‘Puss in Boots’… shiver!). Moreover, at a run-time closing in on two hours, it also tests the patience of moviegoers who aren’t necessarily willing to sit through several minutes of poorly conceived ‘comedy’ just so they can delight in another of the long list of indie/noir references peppered liberally throughout the film.

In the end, Rango is a brave attempt that just isn’t brave enough. It’s like a half-hearted leap off a long take-off ramp with an underpowered bike. It doesn’t please mainstream audiences because it keeps trying to reference movies not enough people have seen and then, as if sensing the strain of vague recollection creeping through the theater, switches almost schizophrenically to the slapstick tomfoolery that is much more at home in Kung Fu Panda 2. It’s a shame really, because in the end this means that the geeks don’t get enough nods to their favorite films, and those looking for simple mainstream entertainment find much less of it to go around. Maybe one day these movies will be cheap enough to make that they can be made honestly. Until then, looks like this one will just be a guilty pleasure for geeks like moi…

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