Rango

I mean this as the highest form of praise, but what the fuck is going on in Rango? It’s like taking acid then watching Once Upon a Time in the West. Needless to say, I adore every single minute of this bizarre, strange trip through spaghetti western tropes seen through the prism of an animated film that’s allegedly for children.

Rango plays on two levels, if I was much, much younger then it would play as a normal movie. It would simply tell its story, get me involved with the characters, have some funny jokes and bring some originality to my eyes by offering an antidote to the kiddie animals and singing princesses bumbling around in 3D. But since I’m a twenty-six-year-old adult viewing this film, it plays out like a kitsch-loving satire of Sergio Leone’s deconstructed epics, filled to the brim with bright colors and an imagination that has been missing from so many recent animated films. (Pixar hasn’t been batting a terribly high average since Cars, DreamWorks only hit it out of the park with How to Train Your Dragon, only Studio Ghibli consistently presents smart films which play well to both audiences.)

And it’s not just Leone’s films that get sent through this film’s warped perspective and arrive on the other side in distorted angles. Apocalypse Now, Chinatown, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are just a few of the sight-gags and comic setups that I remember vividly. But it lovingly pokes fun at these movies, and while it’s a gonzo take on the western it’s clearly coming from a place of great admiration and love. The basic plot line could easily be borrowed from any of John Ford’s seminal classics, and numerous characters bare a resemblance to some famous cowboy. There’s a feast for your brain and eyes going on at the same time as you wash yourself in the gorgeous animation and laugh at the razor-sharp wit and satiric glee.

And, oh, what gorgeous visuals Rango possesses! Its characters are lovingly detailed, looking at once like photo-realistic lizards, rattlesnakes, vultures, turtles, rabbits and moles while still being highly stylized creations. It’s an impressive trick, and the animators pull it off incredibly well. I must admit, there was a point at which I did become incredibly uncomfortable watching Rango and look away from the screen. You see, I’m afraid of snakes, and the big bad in the movie is a rattlesnake. A giant, talking rattlesnake that likes to bare its fangs and ensnare our hero in its scaly body, and this freaked me out. I can only imagine how scared some kids must have been watching this character slither upon the screen. Yet still, the animation was beautifully done as he throws all the weight of his body this way and that with a weight and force that seems incredibly detailed and believable.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that Johnny Depp is the central role. His lizard is a former household pet with daydreams about being an actor who accidentally finds himself in the desert, then in the western, stumbles into being the hero and continually recreates his identity and backstory as he falls into ever larger and crazier lies. His western hero is a self-made part, the role of a lifetime, and Depp finds all of these colorful shades in his vocal tics. Supporting him are a great bunch of actors – Ned Beatty doing a John Huston impression that’s all honeysuckle charm and lurking menance, Harry Dean Stanton, Abigail Breslin, Isla Fisher, Alfred Molina, Ray Winstone, Timothy Olyphant, Bill Nighy and Stephen Root. Look at that tony cast! It’s a fantastic group of character actors finding the creepy, campy undertones in these characters and playing the hell out of them.

Perhaps Rango is more of an adult animated feature masquerading as a children’s film parodying westerns? It’s hard to describe, and maybe I’m just more wrapped up in the sheer giddy weirdness of the whole thing, but I think American animated films could use more adult, more weird and wild films like this. I say the unending sequels which dry the creative wells and tarnish the reputation of the beloved first film need to stop. We need more daring and bizarre voices in the field and within the past decade or so, more of those voices appear to be making themselves heard. So thank god for films like Rango. Just don’t ruin it and make a sequel.