Film review: Rango (Director: Gore Verbinski)

Having shocked viewers with The Ring, enchanted critics with The Weather Man and scored huge box office hits with the Pirates of the Carribean trilogy, director Gore Verbinski seems to be unable to do anything wrong. So when he turns to animation for the first time, we expect him to succeed, especially as he has Pirates star Johnny Depp by his side, lending voice, character and demeanor to a lizard wearing clorful shirts and entertaining dreams of being a Shakespearian actor. And the funny thing is: It does work.

The story is quickly told: A pet lizard is thrown into the Mojave desert because of a car accident. He finds a town suffering from a terrible drought. Inventing heroic stories about himself he hains the admiration of the town's inhabitants and embarks on a quest to bring them water. He is found out, leaves the town in shame, only to return to fulfil his task, which of course he does, becoming the hero he once pretended to be, taking on the villainous mayor, an ancient turtle and a rattlesnake, the most feared gunslinger around.

It is not exactly a new story, the unlikely hero being a staple character of bost Western and animated film. Of course, all charcters, are strong, tough, individual types as the western demands. They are also full of absurdity, always a little over the top, strange and mostly loveable, as is typical in the animation genre. So far, so well known. So why does it work?

One reason is the title character. Rango, a phantasy name he comes up with when he creates his heroic persona in the town saloon, is a pet lizard, an outsider, unfit to live in the real world. A slightly bizarre appearance, coupled with a ridiculous shirt, he is a blank sheet in the beginning. He not only does not have a name, he is nobody, nothing, he could even be said to not really exist.

Though he invents and takes on several personas pretending to act in the safety of his terrarium none of which has any reality. Thrown into the wild, has to come into being. He imitates how others walk and quickly assumes a role which he is amazed works on those around him. Love and adversity help him become somebody in the end. His story is nothing more nor less than one of being (re)born and growing up into a personality of his own - in an unusually short time.

Depp lends him more than his voice, his quirkiness, his stubborn independence, his difference from everyone else is all Depp. This strong connection between actor and animated character is one of the strengths of the film and works for Depp as it does for Ned Beatty as the mayor, the true villain in the piece, for Bill Nighy as Rattlesnake Jim, Rango's great enemy, for Alfred Molina, Ray Winstone and the rest of the great cast.

Another plus the film has is its director: Verbinski's sense of rhythm as well as his sharp and often quite absurd humor which made his Pirates films so good and successful, are in full bloom here. The film shows a great sense of timing, effortlessly quotes the tradition of the Western on so many levels and revealy  such a wonderful attention to detail as well as a biting as well as bizarre humor, there is no chance of boredom. Verbinski combines the strengths of both genres, the Western and the animated film, allows them to collide a little before he fuses them into something all his own, more than the sum of its parts.

This may not be your Disney-style classic for the whole family with its love for the absurd, its biting humor, its acceptance of ugliness, its refusal to soften anything. That makes it even more enjoyable, a not too guilty pleasure.