Review range
This week’s movie reviews take a look at the highly enjoyable animated film, Rango, starring the superb Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands). It also stars Isla Fisher (The Wedding Crashers) as Beans and the lovable AbiGail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) as a lovable and inquisitive mouse named Priscilla.
We meet Rango, a very theatrical chameleon, who spends all his time alone, but has come up with various ways to entertain himself (playing roles and making up stories). As it happens, his intrepid storytelling will be put to the test, as he soon finds himself in the real world (turns out all this time he was improvising with a plastic fish for a friend, he was living in a tank, we find out). this because there is a traffic accident and Rango is expelled from his environment). He meets an anteater named Roadkill played by Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2, An Education), who is trying to get to the other side where the mythical spirit of the West is, and everything they seek.
The two soon part ways and Rango finds himself in a desert town, where the locals are desperate for water, and indeed the local bank (called a land bank) has water instead of money, but its levels are getting dangerously low. Rango’s wacky tales of killing multiple outlaws with a single bullet earn him respect, admiration, and he soon becomes the town’s sheriff, when by some stroke of luck (or call it fate), he manages to kill an eagle that had been killed. attacking the city with a single bullet. The local mayor, a tortoise played by beloved Ned Beatty (Superman), sees that the town needs someone to believe in, and at that moment it’s Rango. Rango, on the other hand, accepts his new role with proper aplomb, reaping all the benefits of being the sheriff, until you wonder if he’s told too many lies to back down, especially since the town is running out of water, and the people expect Rango to solve it, and he promises that he will.
Rango is an extremely funny animation, which will appeal to both adults and children, and some of the lines in the film are sure to be classics, like Rango saying “I want a urine sample from everyone and someone get me a latte.. Don’t confuse the two.”
We also get a guest appearance (albeit in animation) from a well-known star, which humorously fits in with the movie’s anecdotes.