Rango Review

I saw Gore Verbinski's and ILM's recent release Rango, the other day, and I am now getting around to my review. (I apologize for my absence this week. It has been a busy week filled with a voiceover audition for a two-year campaign, two pitch meetings for my own animated series, and my birthday.)

I must say, I really enjoyed this movie. I knew going in that it would probably like it, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. First off all, I was really fascinated with the way in which the film was made, which you can read about in greater detail here. The process basically involved the cast getting on their feet to play act the script and then the animators would use the actors' performances as reference. In a world of the highly mechanical and fairly unartistic process of motion capture, this creative and and collaborative process really intrigued me.

As far as the animation goes, again I am no expert on the craft of animation, but ILM seems to have knocked it out of the park. The characters are very detailed--almost hyper-realistic--and yet they maintain an exaggerated, cartoonish quality.

The performances are pretty good. Johnny Depp does a fine job, but nothing to write home about. There's also a host of admirable performances from veteran character actors like Stephen Root, Alfred Molina, and Harry Dean Stanton. Abigail Breslin, gives a nice performance. And I even liked Bill Nighy's performance as Rattlesnake Jake, which is basically a weird sounding cowboy version of his Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. Although--full disclosure--you will be hard pressed to find me saying anything bad about Bill Nighy. I am still trying to get him to return my calls and let me pitch him my idea for a reality TV series called "Mike and Bill Nighy Are Best Friends and Go on Adventures." The only performance that is stand-out bad is Isla, man was she annoying and over-the-top.

Finally, the only real I have with the movie is the story. It is pretty formulaic, and you have seen a version of this story in Flushed Away, A Bug's Life, Three Amigos, etc. It's pretty weak and kind of hackneyed, and if the performances and animation weren't as good as they are, I probably would have hated it. But overall I left smiling and I got a few laughs, so all-in-all I think it's pretty solid.

Starting next week, inspired by the early post about musical numbers in animation, I am going to do a week long discussion of music in animation that I think you will enjoy. So be sure to check back.

CG