A chameleon with an identity crisis is just the sort of quirky, elevated premise that waits for a Hollywood studio to come around and take it down a few notches, preferably through the agency of a starry-eyed export from a sketch comedy show. Or, in the case of animation, by treading territory already covered by Saturday morning cartoons and artless gag factories. What a pleasant surprise to the pessimist, then, that Rango smartly lives up to its promise, offering up a light but effective existential Western populated by colourful, humanized critters voiced by top-notch, chameleon-worthy actors.
If that’s not enough, Rango succeeds in being one of those comparatively rare films that blends influences and homages together without producing an awkward, indescribably-coloured smoothie. You could list the film’s elements on their own, adding to the visual references to past films: The hero’s quest from cipher to individual, a Western drama of good versus corruption, class warfare between the haves and have-nots, environmental destruction and competition over scarce resources. But where a typical “message” movie might feel compelled to cobble these themes together and glue them with loud commentary, often to the point of preaching, Rango leaves it to audiences to tease out the story’s significance for themselves. This is – studios take note – a far more sophisticated approach to the family movie than the usual trick of cramming a simple, child-friendly story with adult references. (Whether or not casual but thankfully not gratuitous brutality makes the film more suitable for tweens and up than for young children is for parents to decide.) The elegance with which John Logan’s script tells the story of is such that even when Rango goes metafictional, the film doesn’t cross the line from breezy postmodernsim to gimmicky. Case in point: The Spirit of the West, that vital purveyor of wisdom, whose manifestation is nothing short of inspired and pitch-perfect for a film that already comes with a built-in hallucinatory quality.
Credit director Gore Verbinski for bringing a sweeping cinematic sensibility to the film, a quality that tends to evade the television character of lesser animated features. With muscle built up from the visual spectacles of past films like The Ring and, of course, Pirates of the Carribbean, Verbinski offers a dynamic that transcends the film’s medium. Animated or not, Rango is, beyond the warm and often funny story of an accidental sheriff in a rough and tumble town, a pure delight as a film experience. There are shades of the film’s patron saint, Sergio Leone, in the way Verbinski moves from close-ups of characters’ faces to panoramic vistas. This is, of course, as it should be. And Industrial Light & Magic, in their first foray into feature animation, don’t let Verbinksi, or audiences, down. From scales to fur, dust and rock, desert to town, Rango is absolutely gorgeous from details to gestalt.
Pixar may be king on account of consistently delivering quality animated films. But on an individual head-to-head matchup, Rango stands as an equal. Rango may even be bolder than that, a shining testament to the reason Westerns are such rich sources of archetypes and universal themes. Perhaps when Hollywood is done with its latest fad, some studio executive could now consider a revival?
Rango. Written by John Logan. Directed by Gore Verbinski. With the voices of Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton and Ray Winstone. 107 minutes. Rated PG (for rude humor, language, action and smoking).
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