Directed by:
Gore VerbinskiComposer:
Hans ZimmerCast:
Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Timothy Olyphant, Ray Winstone (more)VOD (4)
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From the director of “The Pirates of the Caribbean” comes RANGO, featuring Johnny Depp in an original animated comedy-adventure that takes moviegoers for a hilarious and heartfelt walk in the Wild West. The story follows the comical, transformative journey of Rango (Depp), a sheltered chameleon living as an ordinary family pet, while facing a major identity crisis. After all, how high can you aim when your whole purpose in life is to blend in? When Rango accidentally winds up in the gritty, gun-slinging town of Dirt – a lawless outpost populated by the desert’s most wily and whimsical creatures – the less-than-courageous lizard suddenly finds he stands out. Welcomed as the last hope the town has been waiting for, new Sheriff Rango is forced to play his new role to the hilt... until, in a blaze of action-packed situations and encounters with outrageous characters, Rango starts to become the hero he once only pretended to be. With a cast that includes Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone and Timothy Olyphant as the Spirit of the West, Rango is an exciting new twist on the classic Western legend of the outsider who saves a town – and himself in the process. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (15)
Rango is more about episodic gems than about its story. But these gems are an avalanche of fresh ideas, paying homage to famous westerns, Robert Rodriguez movies and even Pulp Fiction. The characters of bearded lizard hombres spitting in the dust who are rendered more vividly and with greater attention to detail than Clu in Tron: Legacy are a true feast for the eyes of genre enthusiasts. Hans Zimmer’s post-Sherlock music laced with Mexican motifs spices up the comical episodes and boosts the action ones that are shot and edited better than anything you’ve seen in the best action flicks. And there are significantly more jokes aimed at adults than at kids.
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Typical Verbinski. The ideas are pressurized to burst, in a matter of minutes it's able to pulverize Leone, Coppola and Bay together, and it just burps lightly. It's much more functional as a Western ensemble than as a film. The scattering of the individual parts is even surreally generous, so the resulting impression is somewhat restless. With the addition of Czech dubbing, I will have to take away the fifth star, which does not change the fact that it is probably the animated highlight of the season.
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It is my bitter fate to stay grounded and describe soberly what is wrong with the film, while others indulge in a flood of stars and use only superlatives in their reviews. However, I will start with some praise – visually, it is well-crafted, with excellent animation, and fans of the western genre will especially appreciate the game played with the viewer, as the script pays homage to all the important films and genre clichés of classic westerns and their modern variations. Some scenes are really great, like the battle over the water tank, which speeds up the pace by several notches, and the characters face an aerial attack by a squadron of bats armed with machine guns – a treat for action genre enthusiasts. However, I had a big problem with the uneven pace of this film, at certain moments it became quite tedious, which is related to the second problem: due to the numerous references to classic films and emotionally charged scenes, it lacks a cohesive storyline to a considerable extent. It is simply the kind of film where I appreciate many individual aspects, but overall it feels unfinished considering the expectations. Giving it less than 3 stars would be unfair considering its excellent ingredients, but my overall feeling is ambivalence, and I give it an overall impression of 60%. It is truly an animated film that older viewers will appreciate. My two children were bored at times. The more familiar you are with the references, the higher the chances that the film will resonate with you. Otherwise, I can understand the five-star ratings, although I do not share the same enthusiasm, as I feel that it all falls apart.
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After Wes Anderson did it, another live-action film director whom at first glance one wouldn’t expect to take such a step entered the field of animation and showed us how tedious all of those industrial animated movies from DreamWorks, Pixar and other specialised studios really are. On the other hand, as a creator of films with a strong presence of computer-generated effects, characters and even entire sequences, Verbinski’s work actually has something in common with animation, and his original project, in which after a long time he doesn’t have Disney’s Agent Smith breathing down his neck, but is rather nudged by the creative maniacs from Nickelodeon Movies, will allow viewers to see the extent of his creative distinctiveness. What Rango has in common with the Fantastic Mr. Fox is overarching exaggeration and self-reflection of genre formulas, as well as visual stylisation that shuns the simple shapes and multifarious colours that are typical of the competition. Specifically, though we have computer animation here, the stylisation leans towards a coarse hyper-realism with an abundance of the grotesque and deranged carnivalesque details of Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Most of the characters have their own distinct personalities, which are incorporated into the smallest details of their movements, while on a general level the design of the Wild West animal characters looks more like a collection of discarded exhibits from a school biology classroom than vibrant photos in the style of National Geographic (see, for example, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole). In addition to the visuals, however, Rango has an unexpected ace up its sleeve in the form of an overarching meta-genre self-reflection that makes the film a spectacle that parents are more likely to make their kids go to see rather than being forced to do so by their kids. With its dialogue working on multiple levels and relating to the nature of heroism, the role of particular narrative tropes and the heroes’ bond with their stories, it is a caustic reflection on how animated films are, paradoxically and essentially against their intrinsic nature, constrained by their aspiration to be like live-action films, or rather how they are hindered by the fact that audiences now automatically expect them to resemble live-action films. The fact that intellectual mischief dressed up as a dusty and rough-around-the-edges western won the Oscar for best animated film is actually the fulfilment of another formula – the outsider reaches a happy ending and is accepted into mainstream society.
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The film gets off to a great start, the action scenes are witty and brisk, and Zimmer's great music works wonders. I found the main idea and especially its development rather weak and far from fulfilling my expectations, but the pace is quite high, the director successfully and originally gives us a taste of several different genres, and the main character himself wins your sympathy from the beginning and becomes incredibly entertaining with his immediacy and a reasonable amount of goofiness. My only real regret is the boring and clichéd ending, where the screenwriter either didn't know what to do anymore, or tried to make Rango into something more than just a throwaway kids' show. As an animated flick, it’s above average, but as an adventure comedy, it will soon fade from my memory. 3.5*
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Gallery (69)
Photo © Paramount Pictures Germany
![Rango - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/159/885/159885675_97afbb.jpg)
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