Review: Rango

Grade: A

Rango is an ordinary chameleon living in a cage where he attempts to spice up his life by pretending to live out adventures in his confined space. However, one day, when his cage is in the back of a truck that’s driving across the desert, an accident occurs and his cage falls off the truck setting him free. It’s a hot day and all he wants is some water, he comes across an armadillo who points him in the direction of a small town called Dirt. When he gets there, he makes up a heroic back story and becomes an instant hero to the town. However, the town has real problems to deal with, mainly that their water supply has been stolen. The town’s people look to the hapless Rango to find the lost water and save the town.

Rango is a great and extremely funny animated western movie. It is a lot of fun and all of the characters are great. The animation is really great and makes for an absolutely beautiful movie. The jokes keep on coming and it makes for one of the best western movies I’ve seen in a long time. However, I would like to state that even though this movie was aimed at kids, it is far from being a kid’s movie. Many of the themes, events and jokes in the movie are rather adult in nature. There are tons of references to things that kids won’t understand and won’t for a while, like The Man with No Name movies and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for starters. There are lots of guns, gun play and mild violence in the movie as well as plenty of smoking, drinking and some mild language. I absolutely loved this movie but I would be afraid to take young children to the movie for fear that they might have nightmares or something after, there are some pretty scary characters in the movie, namely a giant rattlesnake with a machine gun for a tail.

Johnny Depp (The Tourist, Public Enemies) does the voice of the titular character, Rango. Depp is great and absolutely hilarious with this role, really making the character his own. The movie was clearly made for Johnny Depp because there are a lot of references to his movies and overall personality. The movie also features the voice work of Isla Fisher, Ned Beatty, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Timothy Olyphant and many others.

Rango is a great movie and one of the best westerns to come out in the last decade. It is a very funny movie but I really do have to emphasize that, while kids may enjoy the movie to a point, it’s not really a kid’s movie and most kids won’t fully understand it. But the action is great, the jokes are hilarious and the story is fantastic.

Great quote: “If you want to find water, first you’ve got to find dirt.”