Review

Review Date: 6-March-11
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Rango (2011)

The animated adventure Rango starts out in slow and off-putting fashion. The title character is a scrawny, box-headed lizard in a Hawaiian shirt, voiced by Johnny Depp, who combats the loneliness inside his terrarium by mounting stage plays with plastic pretend friends. Immediately after his introduction he is violently marooned in the Nevada desert, no longer a solitary pet but a would-be hero with the world before him. (If the existence of the movie isn't indication enough, mariachi owls foretell his ballad-worthy future.) He is given a nudge towards destiny by an armadillo philosopher and sets out into the sand.

One suspects later on that the opening of Rango was designed to emphasize its individuality, even though it does this by presenting the protagonist as an eccentric in the now famous Johnny Depp mold. With its quirkiness established, the movie loosens up and becomes lightheartedly derivative, riffing on any number of old westerns and, during the action scenes, on the major series in Harrison Ford's oeuvre. As with all of Depp's touching loners, you come to appreciate Rango through his contact with others, in this case a memorable menagerie of critters who inhabit a town called Dirt. Drought has the town in the grip of panic and it desperately needs a hero. Rango talks himself up as such, accustomed to play-acting instead of interacting, and before long he finds himself appointed sheriff.

Recent reimaginings of the western genre (Serenity, True Grit) have distinguished themselves by a particular use of language, and Rango is no exception. As the leading lizard babbles dweeb-speak and sinks deeper into the cow pie of his own making, the townscritters drawl their wonderful and often hilarious patois. All the classic types are here: the drunks, the madam, the ruffians, the prospectors, the innocent kid, the honcho who runs the town with questionable justice (Ned Beatty), and the feisty gal out to save the family farm (Isla Fisher). My favorite is a gunslinger named Jake (Bill Nighy), a rattlesnake called in by the shady mayor after the last bit of water is stolen and Rango comes close enough to the truth to be dangerous. The possibilities opened up by animation are evident in Jake's flashing coils, which bring Rango to the point where he must decide whether to stay and prove himself or flee into the lonely desert of irrelevance. Anyone who has ever seen a movie knows where his choice will fall, and the fun of Rango is watching how it merges the comfortably familiar with the offbeat charm of its star.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.