For a while now, we’ve all seen Pixar as numero uno in the animation business, and everyone has been trying to match the quality of Pixar’s animation, and its story telling. Dreamworks being one of those studios, and they’ve only come out with a few gems in my opinion. However, we may finally have a movie that can go toe to toe with Pixar. Well with the animation aspect of Pixar. That film is Rango, starring Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, and Bill Nighy.
The film stars a pet chameleon, Rango, who doesn’t know who he is, and seeks a place to fit in. One day he is separated from his home, and ends up in an Old West style town called simply…..Dirt. There he paints himself a gunslinger hero of the old west, and wins over the towns people. They soon make him Sheriff, and give him the duty of returning there most precious thing in the world back to them, Water. I remember seeing a trailer for this movie in front of the worst movie of 2010, The Last Aribender, and thinking “If there was a single positive thing about seeing this movie….it would be the Rango trailer.”
It just looked so weird, and awesome. Truly unlike most of the animated movies i’ve grown accustomed to. Plus the animation was unlike anything i’ve seen before. Having seen the movie, i wasn’t disappointed at all. Rango is probably one of the best, if not the best, non Pixar made CGI animated movie i’ve seen in a while. The story might not be up to Pixar’s standards of awesomeness, but its still pretty cool. What i liked most about Rango was the animation.
This film was animated by the folks at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) who are a famous special effects company who have worked on films like Star Wars and Ironman. They really do a fantastic Job from the beginning of the film to the end. The detail they put into the characters is truly remarkable. Now, as awesome as the animation is, What truly brings out the characters is the performances of the actors. Everyone did splendid. Johnny Depp was the best in this film. He’s one of my favorite actors, and he has yet to let me down. Probably because i haven’t seen The Tourist yet ha-ha. You forget that Johnny is in the movie, and you focus on Rango and his adventure.
There were times when i had to remind myself that Johnny Depp was in this movie. He does a fantastic Job, for sure. My least favorite in the cast was probably Ned Beatty as the Mayor. You might known him as the voice of Lotso from Toy Story 3. In this film, he was just a generic business type villain. Nothing to special there. Whenever you see the newest trailers for this movie, its advertised as an everyday run of the mill kids movie, but i was surprised at how much its not for kids. This movie doesn’t hold back on the violence, the language, and content.
However, thats not at all a bad thing i say. It gives the movie an edge, without making it completely unwatchable by the kids. I liked that the film wasn’t afraid to push the PG rating. What i also thought was cool were the film references. At one point Rango is almost ran over by Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. If you don’t know, Johnny Depp was Raoul Duke in that movie. Also liked the blatant Clint Eastwood reference. What would have been cooler is if they got Clint to voice the animated Clint. Overall i was very impressed with this film. Its a weird, crazy, witty, satirical, and fun animated movie. Some may be turned off by its weirdness, Carter ha-ha, but its still worth checking out.
I give Rango 4.5 Gallons of Water out of 5
(This review was written by Richard L. Purnell from Channel23hahaha on Youtube)