Rango (2011)

From the director of "Pirates Of The Caribbean"

Rango is a lot of fun and sometimes laugh out loud funny: an animated western set in a parched desert town, with a plot driven by a suitably noirish mystery and a cast list full of quality performers.

Johnny Depp voices a fey captive chameleon used to filling his days acting out improvised heroic scenarios with make-believe friends who is suddenly dropped, literally, into a real western adventure, full of life and death choices.

Adopting a heroic facade, Depp's character's fate becomes tied to that of the townspeople, a mixed set of crusty characters including the town bully and his cronies, an avuncular wealthy wheelchair-bound mayor and a feisty attractive young female lizard fighting to keep her farm under threat of bank foreclosure. Outside town, there is a nest of outlaws. The stage is set for a series of showdowns. How long will Depp's character be able to keep up his act?

As a western, this film stands up very well, swiftly shifting the action from the present day to a world of classic and spaghetti western tropes. The saloon sequence early on is very nicely scripted, and along the way there are some clever gunfights and some rollicking action set pieces. There are a lot of nods to classics of the western genre, the soundtrack pays homage to Sergio Leone's films and at one point The Man With No Name himself (as voiced by Timothy Oliphant) even puts in an appearance.

The plot borrows its Hitchcock McGuffin (and the basis of at least one major character) from the classic Roman Polanski/Jack Nickolson detective thriller Chinatown (1974), which fits perfectly in the context of this film.

The cinematography and quality of animation are very good, almost to Pixar level, and should be with the famed Roger Deakins in the credits.

The only question is what market the film is aimed at, and whether children will enjoy it. I would say that it is primarily aimed at a cine-literate adult audience, but will also be suitable for older children, say 10-12 plus. Though generally avoiding westerns, my 10-year old son enjoyed the film, though for him I suspect it had more longueurs than for me.

Turning briefly to the topic of 3D films, as we were waiting for the film to begin, a small child at the front was heard to complain rather piteously, "But Mummy, we haven't got our glasses! Where are our glasses?" Clearly, this poor creature had been brainwashed by the recent studio trend of releasing nearly all films for young people in 3D into believing that 3D glasses were actually NEEDED at the cinema. For shame, film studios, for shame!

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 13 Mar 2011
• Where seen: Cinema
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: added year of release (1974) to mention of film Chinatown. Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.