Patrons of animated film tend to hold Pixar to the highest standard, perhaps even a standard unto itself. “It’s good, but it’s not Pixar quality”, they’ll say, and for good reason. Pixar has made a name for itself as the company peddling some of the richest stories animated features have seen and they back them up with beautifully rendered CGI. While Dreamworks has slowly been inching up to the Pixar standard with How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda 2, they’re still not there entirely there on a technical level. Which leaves us with the curious case of Rango, a Nickelodeon produced film designed by the folks at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) that leaves every CGI film created thus far in the dust. ILM, the company known for creating the special effects for just about every film that needs them, has turned their eye on the animation world and, with all due respect to Pixar, they have established themselves as the people to beat in terms of detail and depth. However, as they’ve shown in Rango, ILM may have created a piece of CGI art, but their storytelling muscles need a little bit of exercise.
Rango is an animated ode to the Western genre designed for consumption by children and enjoyment by parents, all within the family-friendly construct of a talking animal film. Our titular chameleon hero (terrifically voiced by Johnny Depp) has his world (a terrarium) smashed to pieces when it falls off the back of a car and he plummets into the harsh, dry desert town of Dirt, where the currency is water and everybody is just about broke. Even the bank. Rango arrives on the scene just in time to kill a hawk, assert his reputation as a feared gunslinger, and receive the duty of Sheriff. Before long he learns of the town’s water woes and finds himself at the center of a conspiracy with the occasionally catatonic Beans (Isla Fisher) by his side and the outlaw Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) standing between him and justice.
Though it’s an animated film, Director Gore Verbinski and Writer John Logan clearly didn’t have children as Rango's sole, or perhaps even its primary, audience. With throwbacks to classic Westerns flying left and right and animated creatures modeled to a surprising standard of realism (save for size), Rango doesn’t have the cutesy animals children like to see nor is the plot easy for them to follow, however there’s enough visual comedy and action to keep them enraptured. Adults familiar with Westerns, by contrast will spend the film’s duration delighted both by the astounding detail of the animation and the sharp comedy that pervades the film’s core. Verbinski and Logan set out to create something unique, and with the help of ILM they managed to create a decent story with great characterizations rendered at a level Pixar’s more cartoonish fare just can’t match.
While a cast comprised of Depp, Fisher, Beatty, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Stephen Root, Ray Winstone, and Harry Dean Stanton makes for some truly interesting animated characters, it can’t fully redeem a story that sags a little in the bottom despite lots of great comedy and action beats. For Western fans the film is perfectly paced and its structure mirrors lots of classic films of the genre, on top of the plethora of references it makes in both its characters and dialogue. It’s really the film’s only weak point, unless you consider its more adult leaning in lieu of it being aimed at children a problem – but for most that will only add to the appeal. It’s a genuinely mature animated film that kids can still watch and it will likely endear itself to them further as they grow up and begin to enjoy the subversive humor hidden within.
I’ve piled a lot of praise onto the animation style, but it’s wholly deserved: Rango is the richest animation yet featured in a film bar none. Toy Story 3 had lots of depth, and Kung Fu Panda 2 was remarkably rich, but neither are so intricate at so many levels like Rango. If you were wondering if this should be a DVD or Blu-ray purchase, the answer is Blu-ray. This is the perfect film to show off the capability of your hi-def setup and it will shine both in video and with the terrific score by Hans Zimmer, which evokes perfectly those of Western classics.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The combo pack includes Rango on Blu-ray, DVD and as a digital copy. The extras only appear on the Blu-ray disc and they include deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes piece, and featurettes on the creation of the film’s creatures and an interactive virtual tour of the town of Dirt. For animation enthusiasts, there’s a running picture-in-picture commentary that compares scenes to their storyboard origins and it’s lots of fun to watch. The Blu-ray includes the theatrical version and an extended cut of the film (by four minutes) which doesn’t change the film too much, but it does do a little to further emphasize the darker streak of the film’s humor.
"Rango" is on sale July 15, 2011 and is rated PG. Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Western. Directed by Gore Verbinski. Written by John Logan . Starring Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Isla Fisher, Johnny Depp.
