Recall just a few days ago when I reviewed Gnomeo & Juliet as a 'cute but fluffy endeavor' - an innocuous animated feature that felt largely geared for the younger audiences.  Now enter Rango, which is like the complete antithesis to G&J.  How others have described it is more or less on target; imagine what would happen if the Coen Brothers teamed up with Terry Gilliam to remake Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" as portrayed in the Wild West.  The result?  An eccentrically clever, surreal, spaghetti-western action adventure mystery.  Yes, it's just that layered..... and yes, it's as awesome as it sounds.  This one's definitely suited for the grown-ups.

NPR worded it well: "[Rango] is a real movie lover's movie, conceived as a Blazing Saddles-like comic commentary on a genre that's as backlot savvy as it is light in the saddle."  With a noir-like screenplay that's packed with sharp, rough and tumble dialogue, there are nods to the likes of Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, and John Ford, as well as to movies like Apocalypse Now and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  But it's also its own distinctive venture, playing up as a hugely epic fantasy built around the classic machinations of the American Western.  Action sequences are staged like a Hollywood blockbuster, with money shots and grand camera sweeps aplenty, making it easy to forget that you're watching an animated film at times.

Roger Deakins, who worked his cinematographic magic on last year's How To Train Your Dragon, serves as visual consultant here as well.  The look of this movie is simply unreal; it's all at once lush, gritty, and radiant, with certain scenes looking downright photorealistic.  The lighting, a Deakins speciality, is particularly breathtaking.  To again quote NPR: "Dusty, shimmering — it seems at times as if Deakins realized that computer-graphic imagery gave him a chance to do all the shots that were too expensive or difficult to manage when he was shooting the live-action Westerns True Grit and No Country for Old Men."  The anthropomorphic cast of critters by Crash McCreery is superbly crafted, and very nearly tactile-inducing due to their brilliant fur and scaly-skin renderings.  For Industrial Light & Magic's first full-length animated feature, they've created one hell of a looker.

The top-class list of actors pretty much nails the gravelly drawls and dialects required of them.  Depp is merely good in the titular role (still a bit too much 'Depp' in places), but the supporting cast is sublime; Isla Fisher, Bill Nighy, Alfred Molina, and Ray Winstone all rein in magnificent performances.  The music, too, adds spirit to the film - Zimmer apes Morricone at several turns, but the collaborative effort put forth by Los Lobos brings an invigorating surf-guitar sensibility that's a blast to listen to.  "We Ride, Really!" should be an instant crowd pleaser, and the end credits "Walk Don't Rango" is a wicked send-off to the infectious main theme.  The hammy vocal anthem "Rango Theme Song" caps off the credit roll, practically begging you to join in on the chorus line as you leave the theater.

The Western genre has seen something of a resurgence as of late, and Gore Verbinski's first foray into the realm of animated pictures is a rousing success.  I'm bubbling with the same level of excitement I felt when I saw How To Train Your Dragon for the first time.  Rango is a hell of a great time, and should absolutely be seen on the big screen.

Wow whee, Angie, you ought to do movie reviews professionally...

Your analyses are always so insightful, in-depth, and spot-on...

I actually agree with Bern. If you don't do so already, have you thought of contributing these thoughts to online movie review sites?

In any event, I recall being intrigued by the trailer when I went to go see True Grit. I still got two movie passes. Maybe I can convince a friend to go with me

Thanks for the props, you two!  I actually was approached by a few sites who noticed my work, but I had to turn them down.  Let's just say the politics involved got in the way with how I wanted to write.  There's one site I'm currently up for review, but I can't say much more due to their NDA.

Given all the high marks it got from the critics and the Wild West setting unusual for an animated film I had high expectations for Rango, but came away bored and disappointed.

Granted the visual are gorgeous, the vistas right up there with the best in Toy Story 3, the facial animation uncannily lifelike for a group of desert critters, and certain scenes (the bar encounter, the canyon chase) shot in Western style to perfection.  Zimmer's score also emulates classic Westerns to a tee and is enjoyable throughout (it's a shame the album release is supposedly so poorly put together).

But the movie just moves so slowly.  The introduction goes on for far too long - Verbinsky seems so obsessed with letting Depp ham it up he's unwilling to make the necessary cuts to move things along - and though I kept expecting the pace to pick up after the first act it never did.  The repeated attempts at comedy - both the numerous gags for the kiddies and some more adult asides - mostly fall flat; after a few good chuckles in the first act I don't think I laughed again for the rest of the film.

A big disappointment, and given the unrelenting stream of awful previews for other animated films before the show, I expect several more will come this year.

It's not so bad.  Certainly on the short side, but it's a lean 35 minutes that manages to hit most of the important highlights.  As said, I was thrilled that they retained the whole of the end credits.  I did wish they included the opening title theme and the exiled 'night walk' piece, which I took the liberty of making quick and dirty recordings of here:

-Opening Title
-Exiled

Also, they tweaked a cue during the canyon chase sequence ever so slightly for the soundtrack release -- which, unfortunately, resulted in the splicing out of a terrific excerpt of the main theme.  Check out the differences below, where the soundtrack version comes first, followed by the film's rendition at 0:40.

-Canyon Chase

EDIT: And I just learned that the first half of Exiled was actually borrowed from Danny Elfman's "The Kingdom" soundtrack.  Interesting.

Just a quick note: I uploaded cleaner rips of the above recordings.

Also, the home release is officially set for July 15th!

Blu-ray.com's got their review up, and it sounds like a winner.  Great read, and as expected, the picture quality looks to be a total knock-out.

Rango takes home the Oscar.  Hell yeah.

Just saw this just now, and I'm going to have to side fully with Adam on this one.

It looked nice, but the jokes were boring, the story was cookie-cutter and utterly predictable from beginning to end and I'm truly amazed it won this many awards. There must not have been any competition.