☻ ☻ ☻ Rango (2011). A household pet goes walkabout in this modern animated adaptation of the Grimms Brothers' fairytale, The Brave Little Tailor. The tailor's miraculous fly-killing feat is morphed into a tall tale of a seven-at-one-bullet. His obligatory boasting propels the big mouthed, chicken-hearted chameleon, pseudonymous (Du)Rango (voice, Johnny Depp), into the office of Sheriff of Dirt.
Rango's erudition isn't the only characteristic that makes him a fish out of water. Dirt's a dirt-poor Wild West town where water is power and a golfing turtle (voice, Ned Beatty) with a handicap has his paw firmly on the tap. Note the creepy golf balls. Yuck. This mayor-in-a-shell makes you think low-rent Borgias had moved into town. With this animal, you can hardly wait for the carapace to tip.
Love-interest iguana, Beans (voice, Isla Fisher), needs that water to save her daddy's farm. She has an away-with-the-fairies freeze that's a defence-mechanism only a small animal can own. It leads townspeople to think she's nuts, but she's the only one who's not a shell-out sell-out. She's also a broken record when it comes to that farm.
No Heat and Dust, in this hot and dusty epic, the weird and wonderful Dirty citizens get their just deserts in the Mojave desert. Watch it again to count the movie tributes: a crushingly fortuitous Wizard of Oz death; Star Wars chases; slo-mo 2001: A Space Odyssey low-gravity antics; Apocalypse Now Valkyrie-themed battiness; and much more. I loved the Birds' chorus posing as an owlish mariachi band.
Complete with water-bottle wagon chases and a Peacemaker-packing villain, Rattlesnake Jake (voice, Bill Nighy). Keep an eye open for Spirit of the West (voice, Timothy Olyphant), a vaguely cartoonish Spaghetti western Clint Eastwood -- updated to a golf cart -- who has a walk-on part dispensing wisdom and encouragement to a chameleon in need.
I love that mariachi chorus!
Rango: Not your average chameleon. And not your average humanity versus nature morality tale. Take some time off and have a good time.
Speaking out:
89%/72% rottentomatoes.com (26 Apr 2011*)
* Date of web access.
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