You would definitely not think so from any of the trailers, but Rango is a fun and very well put together film with some great animation and acting, interesting characters and one of the best chase sequences I’ve seen in years. It’s also definitely not for kids, as the trailer would suggest, and it’s also not even close to being an animated Fear and Loathing. I don’t even understand why people have been saying this. People are stupid.
But back to the trailers… to say that I was put off by them is an understatement. I even struggled to find a good clip to accompany this review, something that would show just a little bit of the quality and story that can be found in this film. There wasn’t one moment where the film didn’t lose my interest, but I guess that’s not hard when you give me a western… and animate it… and add in a mariachi band made up of four little owls. The Owls are lucky, they can fly around and find some water, but unfortunately for the rest of the inhabitants of Dirt, the little desert town Rango finds himself in, finding this precious resource is a bit more difficult. In fact, water runs the town – it’s the local currency. Run out of water and not only can you not buy a new house… you could even die!
For the next two hours we are witness to a masterpiece of animation, some nice jokes and some excellent characters. A lot of time has been spent crafting every little animal we see, from the character design to the voice acting. If you didn’t read his name on the poster walking in, you wouldn’t even know that Johnny Depp was providing the voice of Rango, and I don’t hesitate to say that it is his best performance in years. Bill Nighy is great as the viscous Rattlesnake Jake, Abigail Breslin cute as always as the little cactus mouse Priscilla and a short but hilarious appearance by Alfred Molina as an armadillo named Roadkill really shows the care that went into selecting these actors.
This film also represents something else exciting – the emergence of Industrial Light and Magic as a feature Animation studio. The animation in Rango is flawless, and I commend Nickelodeon for allowing IL&M to go crazy here. The animals surpass even the best character work of Pixar, and that really is something difficult to achieve. It really does feel like we are in the middle of one of the best eras of animation that film has ever seen, and I’m always happy to see another studio joining the fray and putting together such an excellent piece of work. This is also Nickelodeon’s best film to date and I can only hope that they are setting themselves a new quality benchmark.
