Almost exactly a year ago, on 4 February 2020, I finally got around to watching Rango, winner of the 2011 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Directed by Gore Verbinski (he of Pirates of the Caribbean directorial fame), and released in 2011, Rango is a computer-animated movie that I'd been planning to watch for a long time, and I'm happy to say that it was well worth the wait. Featuring a Wild West setting, it tells the unlikely but highly enjoyable tale of a timid pet chameleon (voiced by Johnny Depp) who is inadvertently separated from his owners and becomes hopelessly lost in California's Mojave Desert. However, in a desperate bid to survive, he pretends to be a bold, fearless fighter (albeit one whose braggadocio far exceeds his bravery), changes his never-disclosed original name to Rango, and becomes sheriff of the aptly-named local frontier town, Dirt. Here he proceeds to investigate why its precious water supply has mysteriously dried up, instigating along the way all kinds of enmity and trouble, mostly for himself.
As a result, Rango is later run out of town by a gigantic rattlesnake gunslinger named Jake (voiced by Bill Nighy and NOT recommended viewing for ophiophobes!), but finds salvation thanks to a mystic armadillo named Roadkill (Alfred Molina), and a taciturn, exceedingly Clint Eastwoodesque Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant). Rango then returns to Dirt, in order to make everything right, because a lizard's gotta do what a lizard's gotta do!
Stir into this already crazy mix a love interest for Rango in the shape of a feisty iguana named Beans (Isla Fisher), Bad Bill the Gila monster (Ray Winstone), and a diverse assortment of other desert denizens, each with their own well-defined, highly individualistic personality, and the result is a movie that never loses its pace or direction. Nor does it lose sight of its ultimate goals – namely, engaging with and thoroughly entertaining its audience.
Rango features fantastic animation throughout, and its captivating if curious storyline is packed full with hilarious quips, pratfalls, and not-so-subtle nods and in-jokes relating to classic Western movies and even Star Wars. All in all, it is easy to see why Rango, a collaborative production between Nickelodeon, Paramount, and several other companies, broke what had hitherto been a Disney/Pixar near-stranglehold on the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. (Indeed, out of the 19 wins since this particular award's inception in 2001, the only other non-Disney/Pixar animated movies to have won it are Dreamworks' Shrek in 2001, Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away in 2002, Aardman's Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005, Warner Bros' Happy Feet in 2006, and Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2018.)
Moreover, Rango also won a host of other movie awards, including a BAFTA for Best Animated Film, and deservedly so. (Yet although nominated, it inexplicably lost out to The Adventures of Tintin as Best Animated Feature Film at the 2011 Golden Globes awards ceremony – ah well, you can't please everybody!) Great fun!
And if you don't believe me, please click here to watch a hilarious Rango trailer on YouTube, and see for yourself!
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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