{"id":1116,"date":"2011-03-03T20:24:50","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T03:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2011-03-04T05:06:40","modified_gmt":"2011-03-04T12:06:40","slug":"review-rango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1116","title":{"rendered":"Review: RANGO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>If ever there was an animated film made for film critics, \u201cRango\u201d is it. With its references to classic spaghetti westerns, Johnny Depp films, and \u201cChinatown,\u201d most critics have reason to cheer. But figuring out who else the movie is for is a little more complicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cRango\u201d is about a lonely pet lizard who becomes marooned in the desert. Rango, as he eventually calls himself, has spent most of his life in a fish tank with only a broken Barbie doll and a wind up fish as companions. But when he is released into the wilds of the arid desert by accident, Rango is forced to interact with other creatures. This leads him to a western set town suitably named Dirt, where a fight over water threatens the lives of the remaining inhabitants.<\/p>\n

The setting and characters in \u201cRango\u201d have all been borrowed from other movies. And the story is complex and convoluted but has, at its core, Roman Polanski\u2019s \u201cChinatown.\u201d A character, identified as the mayor (and voiced by Ned Beatty), adopts the role of Noah Cross originally played by John Huston in the 1974 Oscar winning film. The subject matter is mature, involving life and death issues, which might be troublesome for younger viewers. Certainly, the dense plot will mostly go over the heads of kids and even confuse some adults. <\/p>\n

Clearly, an existential journey is being taken by Rango, complete with visions and what seem to be dream sequences. What is ultimately confusing is where the line dividing \u201creality\u201d from \u201cfiction\u201d is drawn. Since it is blurred almost to infinity, I found myself bothered as the movie concludes. Just what is going on in \u201cRango?\u201d And should we care?<\/p>\n

\u201cRango\u201d is an extremely well-made film. Folks have been suggesting that this might be the film that seriously challenges Pixar in the animation department. And, frankly, there is no argument there\u2014\u201cRango\u201d looks great. But the inevitable comparisons to \u201cThe Fantastic Mr. Fox\u201d are misplaced. Sure, the narrative is mature and really hip, but the sheer craftsmanship involved in making \u201cFox,\u201d a stop-motion extravaganza, had to be far more intense. \u201cRango\u201d reportedly uses a combination of motion-capture and computer animated techniques. I don\u2019t want to diminish the good work put into \u201cRango,\u201d but animation purists don\u2019t consider motion-capture films to be animation. While I disagree with that premise, I wish that more films would be made in the \u201cFox\u201d mold.<\/p>\n

Johnny Depp is his own studio these days. With the exception of last year\u2019s \u201cThe Tourist,\u201d his name is all that is needed to ensure solid box office returns. But often the only way a Depp performance works is if he is playing some kind of fantastic character. In \u201cThe Tourist\u201d he played it mostly straight and few decided to watch. His voice and motion-capture acting talents are on full display in \u201cRango.\u201d And without Depp, working here once again with \u201cPirates of the Caribbean\u201d director Gore Verbinski, \u201cRango\u201d would be much less successful. And while I admire so much about this movie, I just can\u2019t recommend it as a family film and would only suggest it to a very narrow segment of the public who would consider themselves film geeks. <\/p>\n

\u201cRango\u201d is a movie that mostly film critics will love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Animated Feature for Film Critics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","has-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}