By Dan Little
My my my, another genre film? Yet I am not referring to it being animated...gasp as you might I assure you that Rango is a western first and an animated film second. It is also nice to see Verbinski helming something that isn't a pirate movie. So Rango is both the title and the name of our scaled, crazy-eyed lizard protagonist who finds himself chucked from his owner's terrarium and left to die on the side of a desert highway. In desperation Rango wanders the desert until he comes upon the town of Dirt. Dirt is your typical Western genre town. It is desolate, in need of a hero, tortured by outlaws, and run by a crooked mayor seeking his own wealth. The rest of the tale explores Rango's journey from self-proclaimed hero to actually becoming a hero. The tale is stuffed with dazzlingly animated characters, settings, and textures, each pumped full of pizzaz and imagination.
What is really fascinating and earned Rango it's place on my list was it's rather beautiful use of the western genre, especially in the context of a "family" film. The western by its very nature is a genre geared towards boys. Its all about guns and gals and shooting for justice, theres always a clear bad guy, and theres always the puppetmaster, someone powerful and safely hidden in plain sight. Rango embraces this and changes nothing about the genre, but we get a lot of clever visual humor, some great writing, a few laughable references to well-known fixtures of the genre, Clint Eastwood I am looking at you, and yet the film never panders. It never lowers itself for a childrens audience, but it sits in that sweet spot that so many Pixar films have where mom, dad, and kids can sit and watch and each come away feeling like they just saw something special. Rango is smart, witty, moving, beautifully rendered, and one of the best times you'll have with your family...it also is a great way to introduce those tykes at home about of the most enduring and singularly American genres.
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