Rango Review

Rango is perhaps the best movie to come out this year thus far, though considering 2011's pathetic crop of movies, that's not necessarily saying much.   Rango succeeds as a visually unique entry in the often tiredly familiar realm of animation, and even if the narrative sputters and dies before the film reaches its conclusion, it is helped tremendously by the stunning visual presentation of its strange but classically Western world and even stranger characters, many of whom also fit into comfortable Western stereotypes, but with some fun twists.

Though marketed toward kids (this is a Nickelodeon joint, after all), Rango is not for children.  Beyond the requisite scary moments and suggestive humor, the film's art direction is grittily beautiful, but also quite frightening for little ones.  The animal inhabitants of Dirt walk the thin line between animated absurdity and too-realness, and the effect is a unique one and, in my estimation, quite successful, but I can see children being put off.  (Personally, I was bothered by the strange scale applied to the characters, on which Rango is comparable in size to boars, rabbits, and birds, though a hawk or Rattlesnake Jake is much larger and more imposing.  Despite my best attempts to justify the sizing, it bothered me throughout the film.)

Further, the lack of a compelling story won't hold kids' attention, as it didn't even manage to fully engage mine.  This is a tale we've heard many times, albeit never with an owl mariachi band serving as a humorously pessimistic Greek chorus throughout.  Rango is a great character, full of energy and misguided enthusiasm as he tries to play the part of the unlikely hero, but plopped into an overly-familiar Western pastiche, he (perhaps appropriately, being a chameleon) starts to blend in and lose what makes him such a fun presence to begin with.

However, Johnny Depp's voicework is phenomenal.  He brings as much life and style to Rango through purely vocal means as he does with any of his incarnate creations.  Listening to his wonderful line delivery is the best part of the film, especially as Rango's thespian background allows Depp to exercise a full repertoire of accents and personas, all fitting to the character's spectrum of self-representation.  The star-studded supporting voice cast, including Abigail Breslin and Ned Beatty, delivers fine work, too, though none are as impressively flexible as Depp.  The audio experience is rounded out by the wonderful music, drawing heavily from the mariachi tradition and punctuated by the owls' sarcastic numbers.

While not the runaway success that (at least the first) Pirates of the Caribbean was, it's fun to see the blockbuster team of director Gore Verbinski and Depp take on a bold new direction.  For once, I'm actually hoping for the birth of a new animated franchise, because I'd love to see Rango get an adventure worthy of his refreshing oddness.