Rango (2011)

One of the tried-and-true clichés in cinematic gunfights, especially in westerns, is a gun misfiring. In the case of Rango, an animated western reteaming Johnny Depp (his voice, at least) with his Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, the entire movie is a misfire of a rather large caliber.

A band of four mariachi-playing owls serve as narrating minstrels–a framing device lifted straight from the classic comedy western Cat Ballou–introducing us to a talkative lizard who considers himself the greatest actor of his terrarium. That is, until his world literally shatters on a hot desert highway. Abandoned, alone, and thirsty, the lizard finds his first friend in a not-quite-dead armadillo (Alfred Molina) on its back in the middle of the road, its midsection flattened by a car tire. This visual, although bloodless and amusingly familiar to us Texans, is nonetheless a bit shocking to see so early and so boldly in a film targeted toward children (and it isn’t the last shock of the age-inappropriate kind, either). Despite his virtual bisection, the armadillo seems to recover quickly and becomes a spirit guide for the lizard, telling him that to find water in the desert, he must first seek dirt.

Or in this case, a parched desert town called Dirt, where the ragtag, anthropomorphized-animal populace is barely surviving drought and lawlessness, hiding from periodic attacks by a metal-beaked hawk, storing their meager water reserves in the town bank’s vault, and lining up for weekly water rations from their wheelchair-driving turtle of a mayor (Ned Beatty). The new lizard in town assumes the name Rango and lies that he’s a legendary gunfighter, so he takes up the sheriff’s badge and finds himself facing such villains as a Cockney-voiced town bully (Ray Winstone) and his thugs, a blind old mole (Harry Dean Stanton) and his underground crime family, and the fearsome Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy), who wears Lee Van Cleef’s hat and has a machine gun for a tail.

On the positive side, Rango was made with photorealistic three-dimensional animation, so 3D projection and glasses are not necessary. Notably, renowned cinematographer Roger Deakins (every Coen brothers movie since Barton Fink) is credited as a visual consultant, and his handiwork is especially present in the unusual camera angles and shafts of sunlight slicing through shadowy interiors. Gore Verbinski directs some of the scenes as if they were live action, adding a touch of realism and menace. And vocally, Johnny Depp sounds much more animated and invested in this role than in his abysmal performance in The Tourist.

But let’s examine Rango from differing perspectives. Cinephiles like me may appreciate aspects of the film’s look and style, but too many elements are ineffective, in-jokey, and inappropriate. Despite a wide variety of animal character designs on display in the town of Dirt, surprisingly little is done to develop them either as animals or characters.

The lead female, a damsel-in-distress (Isla Fisher) patterned on the Mattie Ross character in True Grit, is a–well, I’m not sure what sort of creature she is, but she’s ostensibly Rango’s love interest. However, she and Rango have very little on-screen chemistry, and her quirk of occasional catatonia is never explained nor pertinent to the story.

And even Rango himself is underdeveloped; apart from a very few moments of lizard-like behavior (such as catching and eating a fly while striding toward the climactic showdown), it’s just Johnny Depp’s voice coming out of a weird-looking lizard. He may as well have been any desert-dwelling animal.

Though adults and movie enthusiasts may appreciate the references and homages to western icons like High Noon and Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name (voiced in a peculiar cameo–why is he driving a golf cart full of film trophies?–by Timothy Olyphant), we may be more disturbed by the main plot, which crosses the line from homage or parody to outright theft: It’s stolen from one of the most renowned Hollywood screenplays ever written, Chinatown. Just like in that classic film of the Los Angeles desert, water is being diverted from the town and dumped in the middle of nowhere. And once Rango meets the town mayor, with his Stetson, imitation John Huston voice, and condescending talk about “the future,” the suspense is gone for anyone familiar with the original film. There’s also a brief but startling appearance early on by one of Johnny Depp’s previous screen incarnations: Hunter S. Thompson from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, an inappropriate move for a supposedly family-friendly film.

So let’s look at Rango from a family perspective. Not having any children myself, I am far from being an authority on these matters, but I’ve seen some excellent animated movies in recent years that were entertaining for children yet clever enough to keep parents and adults engaged (Tangled and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs spring to mind). But Rango begins with Depp rattling off a sophisticated rapid-fire monologue that sounds like a leftover from The Social Network, and though it may seem smart and hip of the filmmakers to avoid dumbing down references for the younger set, parents may have an especially difficult time both in keeping up with the flurries of dialogue and attempting to explain such references as “enlarged prostate,” “fecal matter,” and “cojones” to their children.

There’s also a “son of a –” half-profanity, which led one loud and moral child in the audience to say, “Did he just say a BAD WORD?” All this and more in a PG-rated animated animal movie co-produced by Nickelodeon. And it’s lonnnng, too, dragging out at least 15 to 30 minutes longer than most animated kiddie flicks. Both adults and kids will be bored before it’s over.

My fantasy is that indulgent parents will take their kids to see Rango, become outraged at the mature content, and start enough of a backlash that eventually we won’t have to contend with a new animated kiddie flick (in 3D!) every week at the box office. Remember when animated movies were unique?