Rango

Rango is the first animated feature from Industrial Light and Magic, and as many recent animated features are, it has two levels of appeal: one for the kiddies, and one for adults. The kids around me at the well-attended matinee seemed to have fun during the slapstick and chase scenes, which I found to be fairly standard, but the adults may have had more fun. Especially adults, like me, who have a deep interest in and knowledge of movie history.

Directed by Gore Verbinski and written by John Logan (who also wrote Gladiator and The Aviator), Rango is full of references to other movies. You could make a game of it. Invite a bunch of friends over and shout out every time you are reminded of another film. Just in the first few minutes there are perhaps a half-dozen, from The Odd Couple to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Most of the references are from Westerns. Rango is a send-up of the Spaghetti western, complete with a faux Ennio Morricone score (by Hans Zimmer) and an appearance by the panchoed Man with No Name (voiced by Timothy Olyphant, who does a wicked Clint Eastwood). And so there are many samplings of Westerns throughout movie history, from the classics like High Noon and Shane, to the comic with Cat Ballou.

Though there's a lot of sampling, Rango still has the feel of an original, even if a description seems familiar. Johnny Depp voices the title character, a chameleon who lives in a terrarium. He has an overactive imagination, creating plays with the props in his habitat (a toy fish, half a doll, a dead insect). After a sudden event he finds himself alone by the side of a desert road, and after consulting with a quixotic Armadillo, he ends up in a nearby town, called Dirt. Realizing he can invent himself as whatever he wants to be, he decides to call himself Rango, a gunslinger par excellence.

He's made sheriff by the corrupt mayor (who is specifically modeled on John Huston from Chinatown), and discovers that there's something fishy going on with the water supply. In the time-honored tradition of both Westerns and animated films, the hero must dig deep to find his self worth, facing off against both his fear and a rattlesnake.

I warmed to this film as it went along. As I mentioned I didn't find the action sequences especially inventive, but I liked the witty dialogue (this may be the only animated film that uses the phrase "paradigm shift") and the reverential attitude toward other films. Also, the film uses well-known celebrity voices but gets the money's worth, particularly Depp, who I think expresses more emotion and versatility than in any of his live-action performances.

The animation is also top-notch, with the various creatures looking great. I think the key to Rango's look is the mismatching of the size of his eyes and the little crook in his neck. I also liked a blind mole voiced by Harry Dean Stanton a spider undertaker. One thing the animators had fun with is making the characters' teeth absolutely hideous.

My grade for Rango: B