Featuring the voices of: Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Ned Beatty, Stephen Root and Timothy Olyphant
Directed By: Gore Verbinski
Written By: John Logan
Story By: John Logan, Gore Verbinski and James Ward Byrkit
Produced By: Gore Verbinski, Graham King and John B. Carls
Distributor: Paramount Pictures/Nickelodeon Movies
Rating: PG, for rude humor, language, action and smoking.
Running Time: Approximately 107 minutes
Website: rangomovie.com
Budget: $135 million
Genre: Animation/Action/Adventure
Release Date: March 4, 2011
Even though it’s a co-production between Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures, Rango, the new animated feature from Gore Verbinski (the visionary director responsible for the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, the Naomi Watts-thriller The Ring, and the underappreciated Nicolas Cage-led dark comedy The Weather Man), will likely be more appreciated by older teens and adults than by the younger viewers to whom it’s being sold. Though fun will be had by all.
The first major studio animated film in quite some time that doesn’t employ 3-D technology, the 2-D Rango is a visual stunner, nonetheless (thanks in large part to nine-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins, who served as the film‘s visual consultant, and the talented team at George Lucas’ special effects company, Industrial Light & Magic). Couple that with Johnny Depp’s tour-de-force performance as the title character and this is a case of false advertising that’s easy to forgive.
In this quirky, homage-filled CGI western, Depp, perhaps revisiting his inner Hunter S. Thompson from 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, gives voice to the title character, an initially nameless, pampered pet chameleon who is stranded in the Mojave Desert after being separated from his owner. He eventually winds up in the small western town of Dirt, which is in the throes of an ever-worsening drought and is in desperate need of a new sheriff. After concocting a wild tale of how he took out a posse of outlaw brothers with a single bullet, the nameless chameleon is appointed sheriff of Dirt and is christened Rango.
Rango’s new town boasts an eclectic population of critters, to say the least. There are reptiles, amphibians, and moles, as well as Dirt’s longstanding mayor (voiced by Ned Beatty, who’s no relation to Warren Beatty, nor Warren’s sister, Shirley MacLaine, in case you were wondering), an old wheelchair-bound turtle who may or may not be using the town’s water shortage as leverage in a sinister plot (shades of Roman Polanski’s masterpiece Chinatown instantly spring to mind).
Whether he’s facing down the town’s chief gunslinger, a badass rattlesnake (menacingly voiced by Bill Nighy), familiarizing himself with his new surroundings, or wooing the local hottie (voiced by Isla Fisher, who’s clearly channeling Dolly Parton), we never doubt that Rango will come out on top. Usually that sort of predictability is a liability to a film, not an asset. However, in this particular instance, the marked familiarity, the ever-present sense of déjà vu, actually works in the film’s favor. Plus, it helps that the voice cast, especially Depp, is damn-near perfect across the board, including Alfred Molina as a forward-thinking armadillo, and Timothy Olyphant channeling Clint Eastwood.
The film is comparable to last year’s How To Train Your Dragon in that its visual palette is rich and detailed (as is the filmmaking) and the performances so uniform in their excellence that they all help inch animation that much closer to finally being on par with live-action fare. Even if you have to begrudgingly bring along your make-believe kid(s) in order to blend in and not suffer the indignity of having sleep-deprived, child-wrangling parents throwing aspersions your way, Rango is worth checking out.
4 stars
