movie review
Rango
Johnny Depp brings Hunter S. Thompson to family film
Buy on Amazon.com
Watch the Trailer
Comments
Need family movie and/or TV content for your publication? Email Jane Boursaw, .
If you’re expecting to go into ‘Rango’ and see a cute animated movie that’s appropriate for kids aged 5 and older, you’re going to be disappointed. ‘Rango’ is an excellent movie; it’s just not a kids’ movie. When I saw the movie, a few parents actually took their young kids and walked out of the theater after the first few minutes.
I think the core demographic might be fans of director Gore Verbinski, Hunter S. Thompson (Johnny Depp reportedly based his character on the drug-addled author of ‘Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas’), or filmmakers looking to see how a well-done animated film for grownups is made.
The story begins with a pet chameleon getting tossed out of the back of a moving vehicle and smacking willy-nilly around a busy highway until he comes to rest by the side of the road. On the advice of an armadillo named Roadkill (voiced by Alfred Molina), he makes his way into the desert where he lands in the Wild West town of Dirt and takes on the role of a tough guy named Rango.
The town has some problems. They’re out of water, for one thing. There’s a menacing rattlesnake (Bill Nighy) terrorizing all the lizards, moles, mice and shrews who live there. And they could use some guidance and hope. With Rango’s can-do attitude and experience at taking out bad guys with one bullet (or so he says), he’s immediately elected Sheriff to get the town back on track.
The characters in ‘Rango’ are completely mesmerizing. They have that quality of looking like real humans, despite the fact that you know they’re animated characters. And you couldn’t find better voices anywhere. Depp does an eccentric, devil-may-care Rango, with double-entendre lines that take a second viewing to catch them all, like “Stay in school, eat your veggies, and burn all the books that ain’t Shakespeare.”
With her ultra-cute voice and spot-on timing, Abigail Breslin creates one of the most memorable animated characters in recent history as Priscilla, a wise-beyond-her-years cactus mouse. Other voices include Isla Fisher as Beans, a desert iguana; Net Beatty as the mayor, a desert tortoise; Harry Dean Stanton as Balthazar, a mole; Timothy Olyphant, channeling Clint Eastwood as the Spirit of the West; Stephen Root as Merrimack, a Mexican Ground Squirrel (among others); and Ray Winstone as Bad Bill, a gila monster.
That all sounds good for a cute family movie, but more intense elements turn this into a grownup movie. The violence edges towards PG-13 territory, with plenty of killings, near hangings, gunfights and perilous missions. Language includes “damn,” “hell,” and “son of a ...,” getting cut off before it hits the b-word. And one surreal scene finds a suicidal Rango wandering onto a busy highway, then experiencing a trippy vision that brings him back to reality.
It’s like director Gore Verbinski took elements of his other films ‘The Mexican,’ ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,’ and ‘The Weather Man,’ and threw them all together into this movie. The result is an inventive, creative and fascinating animated film, but one that’s not really suited for kids.
Comments on Rango
Post a Comment