Modern Western

My goal on Friday night was to go out and see The Adjustment Bureau. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. For some reason it was only showing in the Ultra AVX theatre and I was not in the mood to pay an extra $6 for the volume to be turned up and comfier seats. The regular seats are comfy enough and I want to be able to hear after I leave the theatre. There would have been room in a regular cinema if they weren’t using 3 screens on that movie about the kid with the hair. You know which one I am talking about. So it was exnay on the ureaubay. It will have to wait awhile most likely cuz some stuff I really want to see is coming out in the following weeks. So I settled on the animated antics that is Rango.

Due to an incident while a passenger in a vehicle a melodramatic, existential chameleon – whose friends consist of a wind-up orange fish, a one-armed headless torso of a doll, and a dead bug – becomes stranded on the side of a road in the middle of the desert. On the advice of some still living roadkill he wonders into the desert in search of water. He ends up in the dusty town of Dirt. He creates his own persona, the heroic, gunslinger Rango. Through his tales and accidental bravery he is selected to be the town’s sheriff and find the cause of the towns sudden water shortage.

This movie isn’t bad but I have a hard time saying its good. The movie is an animated western. There are arid landscapes, gunslinging, and an interesting cast of characters. The hero, who he helps/protects, and the villain with his cohorts are clearly defined. There is sass talk, pleading and fightin’ words. But it just didn’t hit the mark for me.

I am moderately versed in the language of the western, my favourite being Two Mules for Sister Sarah. I have also watched and enjoyed movies like The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Bunch, and the man with no name trilogy. There is a slow, methodical pace to them ripe with stinging insults, tense stand-offs, and great adventure. In the movie they make pretty clear reference to the classic movies of the genre, its great directors like Sergeo Leone, and its great actors mainly Clint Eastwood. There is even a great reference to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which may not be a western but it is a shout out to the star of the movie.

With Rango the dialogue is there. It is sharp and quick witted. But the pacing is off. There is no progression; it either stands still or revs and takes off. And it lacks a certain level of intensity. At those parts where there is a stand-off the level of angst never reaches a high enough peak and the overall sense of urgency that is supposed to be portrayed is lacking. The one thing that they get across flawlessly is that the desert is hot.

Visually the movie is stunning, absolutely brilliant. The movement of the characters, lighting, and textures are just fantastic. The characters themselves are not overly cartoon-ish helping to ground them in reality. That realism creates a great complementing contrast to fact that these reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals wear clothes. The textures are particularly amazing. Skin looks soft, rough, smooth, slimy, porous, oozing or diseased depending on the character. But I must admit there is something unsettling about watching a possum talk.

The voice acting is also fantastic. They are making a big deal about how the sound was captured, having the actors run around as if they were in this world, calling it “emotion capture” (lame) but it has been done. Wes Anderson did the same thing for The Fantastic Mr Fox which sadly not enough people paid attention to. But no matter who did it first it is an effective manor of getting the necessary emotion for the voice over. The great work isn’t just from the main cast Johnny Depp is the voice of Rango, Ilsa Fisher voices Beans and Abigail Breslin voices Priscilla but also the supporting cast that includes Bill Nighy, Timothy Olyphant, Ned Beatty, and Steven Root.

This isn’t much of a kid’s movie. Sure they will enjoy the vibrant colours, some of the over-exaggerated movement, and the silliness but the overall tone is very adult. And most of the references made are not to anything current but to films from 2 generations ago.

If Rango was released in 3D I wouldn’t recommend it. The extra bucks really wouldn’t be worth it. But it is a movie to be seen on the big screen. It is the only way to appreciate the beauty of the overall product.

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