Rango (2011) Review

An overall entertaining and visually stunning film Rango tells the story of, well, Rango.  Voiced by Johnny Depp, Rango is a chameleon who is inadvertently lost in what appears to be the Nevada desert. He comes to the town of Mud which is filled with little furry or scaly critters experiencing an unprecedented drought. Rango, who besides being an outsider and a college student's lost pet (and therefore hardly able to survive in the harsh unforgiving terrain), is a pathological liar. Rango becomes the sheriff of Mud after he accidentally kills a bird of prey and sets out with a posse to find who is stealing the water (which turns out to be humans).

The movie is filled to the brim with western homages which might be a miss for younger children or even only occasional movie-goers (including a character patterned after Clint Eastwood who incidentally is called "The Spirit of The West").  The animation is  fantastic but the jokes just fall flat. I don't say that no one would laugh but, much like Coraline two years ago, that excellent animation is wasted on the occasionally boring story and one-note jokes. Even the voices of Ned Beatty and Bill Nighy (who is one of the high points) can't help those problems.

The movie is financed by Nickelodeon Films and although not up to the standards set by the Pixar or even the Dreamworks films the movie would be good for ten or twelve year-olds and is far better and filled less with childish humor than The Spongebob Squarepants Movie.

★★★