Rango (***½)

Directed by: Gore Verbinski

Starring (voices): Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Bill Nighy, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Ned Beatty, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Timothy Oliphant

Seen: March 18^th 2011

***½ Out of ****

2D is back with a bang with Rango, an animated treasure showing the world that an immersive story trumps an expensive gimmick every time. Johnny Depp is Rango, a domestic chameleon who, on a desert highway, gets knocked from his owner’s car. As he gets to grips with his fate, he meets an armadillo, Roadkill (Molina), who tells him of the Spirit of the West, to be found on the other side of the road, which is his quest; and he directs Rango to Dirt, a day’s journey into the desert.

En route to Dirt, Rango only barely escapes being eaten by a hawk before dozing off overnight. When he wakes he meets the lizard Beans (Fisher), who takes him along to Dirt, a small Old Wild West Town inhabited by various desert animals. Rango has a theatrical side to himself, and he quickly wins the locals over with his enigmatic approach, making himself a hero via tall tales, even his new name is improvised. His cavalier approach quickly gets him on the wrong end of a shoot-out, which he only avoids when the hawk returns. He manages to kill the hawk purely by accident, and becomes the town hero. Mayor John (Beatty), a turtle in a wheelchair, assigns Rango Sherrif of Dirt, and Rango must investigate town’s water shortage problem.

Rango rides out of town with his new posse when the bank is robbed, in search of their stolen water. The ensuing tracking and confrontation and escape chase sequence is a glorious throw-back, together with the rest of the movie, to all the great Westerns and more; with dialogue lifted (or modified) from, and scenes reminiscent of, the classics. Even The Man With No Name (Oliphant) shows up in a wonderfully interesting and almost dream-like scene, as the movie’s hit-and-miss ratio soars towards all hit and no miss. Rango must navigate all of these events in an effort to find out what happened to Dirt’s water, and  when the going gets tough, Rango also lets go one of the better lines from the movie: “A man cannot walk out of his own story”.

Johnny Depp leads an amazing voice cast, bringing life and credibility to all the characters, from the unlikely hero to the scheming villains. The animation is top-notch, with the lack of 3D “sunglasses” allowing the colours to really pop. The story is constantly accompanied by a mariachi band of four owls, forming part of many scenes as they provide music and narration to the story, always warning of Rango’s impending death, talking directly to the audience. The comedy is layered, and I guess upon seeing Rango again you’ll find different things to enjoy than a previous time while discovering new nuances in jokes you enjoyed the first time.

Rango is my favourite movie of 2011 (this far), as it presents a perfect blend of entertainment and bright-eyed admiration of the movies that inspired or originally delivered some of the lines or scenes so deftly used to bring to life the tale of a charismatic chameleon bluffing his way through to becoming an action hero. This is what we go to the movies for.