Dear Rangorians

This is just me trying to write film reviews, as that is what I might want to do for a living later in life and what better to work with something you love?

For this weeks film review our dear chameleon Rango was on the program, together with mexican food, even though Rango does not really play in Mexico but in the Mojave Desert. This piece of work is directed by Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinsky and voiced by no one less but Johnny Depp as the pet chameleon Rango. Even though commercially made as a children's animated film, this piece of art seems mainly aimed at those a little bit older.



The story is almost a true western when a pet chameleon falls out of his owner's car together with his terrarium and meets up with Roadkill, a run over armadillo. In this dry land our chameleon friends is in search for water and with a little bit of help from prophet like directions from Roadkill he finds the town of Dirt with a little help from a ranch owner's daughter Beans. From then on the film becomes a real western when Beans finds out that the water supply at the bank is running low. While Rango is at the saloon selling himself off as a hero, a hawk comes to town for a small bite and has its eyes set on the chameleon who has no idea of survival and accidentally kills the hawk with only one bullet. They pronounce Rango their sherif and in charge of finding more water, what then follows is a tale of betrayal, courage and love.

This cleverly written script gets topped by the best SGI graphics the cinematic world has seen. The lizard family all have scales, differently coloured and moving with the movements of their bodies. All other hairy and not so hairy folk have close to natural fur and skin that it could be a wild life documentary except for the fact that they are walking talking animals that live in a wild western village. The diverse wild life that has come to life in this animation is astoundingly real and fills the hearts of children and parents alike.

Besides the amazing graphics are the jokes to die for. Seeing this as an adult, the jokes may get lost on children, but the story is intriguing and almost original. It has the cliché western film problems and characters, but that is what makes Rango so brilliant. They take the old school westerns to the hearts of children by using humorous, talking animals and vile desert creatures to embody the bad guys. For the adults they have enough sexual innuendos going on and some brilliant cultural references.


This made me love the mature nature Rango has at times

Forget Disney Pixar, Paramount Pictures and Gore Verbinsky have shown me that computer animated films can be just as brilliant as they have been almost a decade ago when animals first started to talk in their computer generated skins like antz. No cheesiness, child friendly script and princesses with too little braincells, befriend a chameleon that finds courage and friends by finding the answer to a water problem.