Customer Reviews

Rango

5 star:		(128)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(40)
2 star:		(28)
1 star:		(58)

 

 

Director Gore Verbinski has put together quite the filmography over the years. His first feature film was the family comedy Mousehunt, which he followed up with the R-rated action comedy The Mexican. He also jumped on the successful remake bandwagon before the trend really took off with The Ring. It was the Pirates of the Caribbean films that teamed the director with the hottest actor in Hollywood today; Johnny Depp. Perhaps it's because those films made over a billion dollars at the box office or because they just had fun working together or a little bit of both that Depp was chosen to voice a talking chameleon in Verbinski's bizarre yet spectacular animated adventure known as Rango.

Rango isn't your average animated film. That fact will become abundantly clear during Rango's opening monologue amongst his "friends." The film is actually more adult than any of the trailers let on. Within the first ten minutes of the film, Rango has a rather lengthy conversation with some fresh roadkill. In addition to that, the last half of the film is much darker than the first half. Maybe it's the countless number of bats with gatling guns strapped to them, Rattlesnake Jake being one of the most menacing animated villains in years, the film using its fair share of both "hell" and "damn" quite a few times, the film not shying away from the use of nooses, or, God forbid, animated characters smoking, but Rango just doesn't feel like an everyday, run-of-the-mill film put out by Nickelodeon.

Rango also wears its western references on its sleeve. The old time saloons, tumbleweeds, stare downs before a gunfight, and a town's utmost desire for both a sheriff and something to believe in are proof of that. But perhaps it's Timothy Olyphant's cameo appearance as The Spirit of the West that is both the biggest homage to westerns you could possibly think of and the biggest surprise of the film (at least as far as his appearance goes). Well it's either that or the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas reference. Both are equally amazing.

This has the atmosphere of an animated film that was made for adults. It's very off-balanced in the best kind of way, but a lot of the references and humor are sure to go over a child's head. Some of the characters in the film talk really fast (mostly just Rango and Beans at times) and while Rango is goofy enough to make the kids laugh, the subject content involving the town of Dirt certainly seems to be aimed towards a more mature sense of humor.

Rango is the first animated film from Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects company that did computer generated effects for the first three Star Wars films and the effects for the T-1000 in Terminator 2 among countless others. The film looks phenomenal. There were times when Rango looked like he was walking in an actual desert. While the characters weren't quite as detailed as the owls in Legend of the Guardians, they still looked incredibly realistic or as realistic as talking animals could possibly be.

Rango is one of the most eccentric animated films you'll ever have the pleasure of sitting through. Its homage to westerns combined with its explosive action sequences, an endless amount of hilarity, tender and sentimental moments that actually make you feel sorry for a talking lizard, and even a little bit of romance pretty much has all your bases covered as far as genres are concerned. Rango is a dark, witty, and entertaining ride that's also fairly mature for an animated film. All in all, Rango is easily the best movie of 2011 so far.

Gore Verbinski's animated feature Rango, with voices by Johnny Depp, Ned Beatty and a host of other talented actors, is a hard film to review, mainly because its real target audience is not the one it's being marketed towards. Let me just flat out say it: this really isn't a kids' animated movie. Not because there's anything in it that is not suitable for kids - there isn't - but because 95 percent of what really makes it worth seeing is going to go right over most kids' heads.

On the surface, the plot is fairly straightforward, at least in the set-up. A terrarium-housed pet chameleon lizard (it's significant after the fact that you never know his real name) ends up stranded in the desert where he is directed to a small town that is on the verge of extinction because of a mysterious water shortage. In his efforts to blend in (he _is_ a chamelon after all), he adopts the name Rango and in quick order suddenly finds himself appointed sheriff and given the mission of finding out what's happened to the town's water.

Stylistically, Verbinski was willing to take some real chances with Rango, and anyone who appreciates animation as an art will find a lot to see here. The level of detail and sheer originality is stunning. Rango does not resemble _anything_ I've seen in an animated film before. Though set in the current day, the world of Rango is essentially an Old West town - aptly named Dirt - that's literally drying up, populated by a cast of animal characters who look like they stepped out of any number of classic Westerns. The difference between Rango and your usual animated take on this theme though is that the residents of Dirt are _not_ cute. In addition to being much closer in look to the real animals they're based on - lizards, tortoises, toads, possums, snakes, prarie dogs and such - they're also grizzled, dusty, sun-bleached and wind-beaten, and in many cases, just downright _ugly_. Including, or even especially, the good guys. One suspects that merchandising for Rango will be somewhat problematic.

But it says something that everything fits together seamlessly. The town really looks like an Old West town on the verge of becoming a ghost town, and the characters look like they really do live there. And again, the level of detail is stunning, from the clothes the characters wear to the characters themselves, the buildings and other structures, the interiors. The four desert-owl mariachi players who sing narration at various points in the film are a case in point. The level of detail that is taken with their intricately shaded feathers, their embroidered mariachi costumes and their musical instruments - and the way all of these things _move_ when the characters do - is amazing. This is a movie you could watch again and again just to appreciate how much the artists put into it.

I have to mention two characters in particular that really stood out: the Mayor (marvelously voiced by Ned Beatty), a tortoise modeled directly on John Huston's genial but chilling Noah Cross from the classic film Chinatown, and Rattlesnake Jake (also marvelously voiced by Bill Nighy), absolutely one of the best animated villains ever created. It's absolutely spell-binding just to watch Jake _move_, a stunning feat of animation. I've never seen an animated character manage to radiate sheer menace on the level that Rattlesnake Jake does. In thinking about it, I now have to amend my earlier statement somewhat; Rattlesnake Jake could definitely scare some younger children. But that said, Rango is worth seeing for Rattlesnake Jake alone.

My mention of Chinatown brings me to the other prospective audience for Rango: film buffs. Rango references a truly astonishing number of movies: several classic Westerns (High Noon; The Good, the Bad & the Ugly; The Quick & The Dead, Paint Your Wagon) as one would expect, but also a number of non-Westerns, some fairly recent (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, A Bug's Life), some classic (Lawrence of Arabia, Apocalypse Now) and some obscure (Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas). And of course Chinatown, not only for the Mayor character but for a number of scenes (watch for the glasses) and a good deal of the plot. And there's also a key scene that's a nod to a famous actor/director who is still remembered for his association with Westerns and for a certain classic character he created. A good example of the little in-jokes in Rango is what he's carrying around in the back of the golf cart. As I said, most kids are going to miss 95 percent of this stuff. Me, I want to get the DVD just so I can watch it again and pick out all of the references I probably missed the first time around. It's that kind of movie.

About my only real criticism of Rango - other than its being marketed to the wrong audience - is that parts of it are uneven and do tend to drag a bit. I think this is because the parts that do seem to be meant for kids tend not to mesh that well with the rest of the film. The parts that adults will enjoy most will probably be of little interest to kids, and the parts that kids will enjoy most will probably make things drag for adults.

But overall, I highly recommend Rango. It's not your typical animated film, and most kids will probably complain that a lot of it's boring, but for anyone who loves the sheer art of animation or who just loves films that reference all manner of movies from the great to the obscure, this is definitely a film you'll want to see.

I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to see, but I figured with Verbinski and Depp involved it couldn't be too bad. Boy, did I underestimate them! This movie was hysterical from the opening moments (Mariachi owls, anyone?). I agree with all the reviewers who said it wasn't a kids' film - too dark, and the amount of references and in-jokes lifted it way out of the Saturday morning/Disney category into the realm of inspired parody, but without losing a certain sweetness. The animation and production were outstanding as well, and I'm hoping the boys team up with ILM again soon!

Going into this film I had pretty low expectations. It's released by Nickelodeon, stars Johnny Depp, who tends to be rather feast or famine, and is an animated film that's not made by Pixar. Due to that latter fact, the probability of it sucking hard went up by, oh, about 300%. So imagine my surprise when I went in and actually liked the movie!

Rango stars Depp as the title character, a chameleon who finds himself lost in the middle of the Nevada desert. A kindly, if somewhat odd, armadillo (Alfred Molina), sets him on a course that takes him to the town of Dirt. The town, which is lifted directly out of every old West movie ever made, is populated entirely by animals, uses water as a currency, has a massive water shortage, and a shortage of living sheriffs. Next thing you know, Rango has ridden to the post of sheriff on a pack of lies and finds himself stuck in the middle of something bigger than he'd expected.

There was a lot to enjoy about this movie. It's really one of the funnier comedies I've seen in a long time (and made for adults as well as kids. I doubt many eight-year-olds would appreciate Hunter S Thompson), and it's a movie that clearly knows its cinematic history (just wait until you see the Spirit of the Old West). It's also astonishingly lovely to look at. I compare the CGI in this with, say, Shrek, and the distance we've come in just a few years is really breathtaking. There were several points where I would have sworn the animals were muppets rather than CGI. They really looked good, as did the desert landscape.

Sure, I'll be the first to admit that much about the movie doesn't make any real sense, like why would there be talking animals setting up a town in the desert in a world that clearly includes humans? Why would said town be based on the old west when the movie is set in modern times? How did they manage to have things like shotguns and a Bible? But frankly I was able to ignore all that because the movie really was amazingly good!

So if you're looking for a little time to kill this weekend, go see this film. It's easily the best animated movie since Toy Story 3, and one of the best comedies of the last few years.

Rango is one of the most pleasantly weird animated movies I've ever seen. It's basically a throwback western with enough grit to make Rooster Cogburn blush.

The visuals are gorgeous, courtesy of ILM (this being their first animated feature), with some of the characters looking more Muppet like than a creation of CGI. Maybe the closest I've seen to reaching the high standards of Pixar, but boy are they not pretty to look at. You can practically smell them.

The story is very simple and similar to almost every western made, but the various strange looking inhabitants and clever dialogue carry most of the film. And yes, it's more clever than laugh out loud funny. In fact, most of the jokes seemed to have been missed by the people sitting around me. They are quick and often thrown out with a strong accent so you'll have to really pay attention.

The voice cast is full of familiar names, but Johnny Depp as the title character deserves mention. He could have phoned this thing in and still made millions, but instead it seems that he put every ounce of energy and craft he possessed in creating a voice that's both memorable and interesting to listen to.

This may seem strange, but Rango isn't made with kids in mind. Almost all of the jokes and references are aimed at adults. Likewise, the language, violence and all around meanness will likely upset small children and the parents that might be caught off guard. If The Dark Knight was a hard PG-13, this pushes PG to the limits. Some older kids might enjoy it, but like I said, most just won't get it.

If it doesn't get forgotten due to the early release date, this could pop up for an animated film Oscar. It is not for everyone, so maybe that's why I found it so fresh and captivating.

Rango fits into the category of movies that are kind of in between. It wasn't horrible by any means, but at the same time, I wasn't at the edge of my seat or laughing my head off.

Rango's best feature is clearly the animation. The detail of Rango's skin, teeth, and tounge, the shots with people in them, and the sequences with water spilling all over the places. All of these were visually stunning. But unfortunately, we need more than just something to look at to make a good movie.

The main focus of the movie was getting water back to this old west town. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much tension built up to give the movie any kind of forward drive. There are small fights mixed in between Rango and other characters, but you don't really get the sense that Rango is all that passionate about getting water.

The character of Rango himself is very likeable. He's kind of a "fish out of water" type that's been thrown into this mess against his will. His tiny neck and facial expressions make him rather funny looking at times, and Johnny Depp does great voice work.

While the movie wasn't all that memorable, it wasn't that bad, either. I can't picture myself wanting to watch this repeatedly, but maybe you will.

I went and saw "Rango" in the movie theatre. My podner :) and I loved it so much, I bought the Blu-Ray. We LOVE it. This is a movie for ADULTS who love SPAGHETTI WESTERNS. It's NOT for kids, none of the incredibly detailed critters are cute and fuzzy, they have eyes shot out,spit tabackky in their beards, have horrible teeth...your standard spaghetti western characters.
This movie is an homage to the "Good and Bad", no more, no less. Rango is clearly "the man with no name" the GOOD( and he, the GOD of all things good and western, makes a cameo, but I won't ruin it for ya-well ok I will, CLINT EASTWOOD ((without using C.E.))) and Rattlesnake Jake is "the BAD", same 'stache and hat as Lee van Cleef. Rango is on a search for who he is, and to write his story.

My other favorite thing about this movie is Los Lobos. The music, and their characters, are absolutly awesome in the traditional spaghetti mariachi music embrace of the genre. A++ to them!

This is one of the best animated movies that I have ever seen. One of the reasons is that I worked in the high desert of CA, actually in the Mojave desert, as a math teacher, so I am familiar with the dynamics of small town society in the Mojave. (Though granted, I was pretty close to civilization).

The introduction threw me off a little bit and seemed a little too artsy for my taste, but it made sense in light of the rest of the film, that plays on Rango as more or less a wimp who is forced to act the part of a tough and courageous and wily local town sheriff.

But the artistry, grace, attention to detail, and dialogue are what make this movie unforgettable. The scene where he hiccups the flaming cactus juice into the face of the bully, who then responds with a simple offer of a gun for a life-threatening duel was priceless. I also loved the part where he walks into the bar and the music immediately stops and there is enormous tension, as the small desert rabbit asks "Who are you?" And the scene where they are looking for the water pipe and he says some kind of theatrical and pompous verbiage where the other people in his posse claim that "I think he said 'follow the pipe'." was also quite excellent.

But the confrontation between him and the legendary Rattlesnake Jake was the highlight of the film and superbly done. I find it difficult for anyone to reasonably give the film less than four stars out of five after watching that.

Product was as expected. This was a bonus, because it came with both the Blu-Ray & DVD. Well worth the money. This is a instant classic that is great for all ages. Watch again and again and get more laughs the second time.

Don't want to be a spoiler, but i'm a super Johnny Depp fan, and a Jorge Louis Borges fan. This movie combines their style together. My favorite one.