Rating: PG
Director: Gore Verbinski
Stars: 2.5 out of 5
Rango” is a surreal animated film that will entertain children while providing enough substance, humor and cinematography to please adults. Directed by Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean”), the film takes viewers through a slightly slanted view of the Old West, only this time with animals in the household Western roles.
The hero of the movie, Rango, is an unnamed chameleon who finds himself stranded in the Mojave Desert. After meeting an armadillo named Roadkill (Alfred Molina), he arrives at the town of Dirt. Your town is a typical Western community, with a crippled Mayor (Ned Beatty), a town crook named Rattlesnake Jake, who is literally an evil snake (Bill Nighy) and a rancher’s daughter, who also happens to be a desert iguana named Bean. (She Fisher).
The premise of the film is based around an illusion. Rango comes into town as a creature with no name, before claiming to be a drifter. Dirt Town is a pastiche of western clichés that blends the movies into one surreal vision. After Rango shoots the killer hawk, he quickly turns to the Sheriff’s town when he discovers the city’s water supply. site course Mix that with the inevitable showdown with Jake the Rattlesnake and you have a standard Western, albeit with animals instead of hardened actors like Clint Eastwood or Lee Van Cliff. Eastwood’s Famous Man With a First Name in “Rango.” The mystical Ghost of the West (Tim Olyphant) takes on Eastwood’s mannerisms, providing Rango with a guide as he advances through the treacherous Lands of Earth.
Vebrinski’s films have always had a sense of the surreal about them, but now they are free from the shackles of live action. movie, everyone goes out with their vision. Rango” is a mash-up of almost everything Western, Johnny Depp, Clint Eastwood, “Star Wars” and even classic movies “Chinatown.”
One interesting aspect of the movie is the way it interacts with each other. Most animated films have voice actors recording their work separately. For Verbinski, “Rango” recalls his cast over twenty days with costumes and props, allowing the actors to interact with each other. It’s brilliantly moving and shows how the film’s letters talk to each other instead of each other.
In the animation in the movies is amazing. Light Industries & Magic (ILM) may be known as a special effects house, but its first foray into the world of animation was a huge success. The characters feel real, and the settings look alive. At a time when computer animation can hinder filmmaking, animators really do make this work of art, on par with some of the best hand-drawn animations.
Until then, it’s a free real estate investment. When a movie is so heavily steeped in movie history, it runs the risk of becoming a cliché, which “Rango” unfortunately does. It follows the old man of the West’s plot coming to town, facing criminals and proving his mettle . While this may not bother children or those who are not experienced with film history, the film tries to reach the hardcore film lovers that the by-the-numbers plot feels a bit like a failure. But this is a minor complaint. “Rango” is a production that far more than fails, and is sure to get with children and families for a while.
