Rango

Review by Pete Roche

Rango is a reptile with an identity crisis.  A sheltered existence inside a glass tank doesn’t suit this common chameleon.  Indeed, he doesn’t even get his name until fate literally turns his world upside-down, spilling him across a humid highway bisecting the Mojave Desert. “I’m just the guy,” he tells the toy fish and Barbie doll torso comprising his makeshift theatre troupe. 

Acting allows Rango to test-drive different personalities.  Improv is something of a specialty for the adaptable animal, even if he’s not quite sure who he is.  He’s got Marty Feldman’s stereoscopic eyes and John Wayne’s swagger.  He’s a little bit Don Juan, Ichabod Crane, and Captain Jack Sparrow.  He’s also got Johnny Depp’s voice—which is convenient, since the omnipresent actor played those guys, too (Depp also appeared in Hunter S. Thompson's FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, which is referenced here).  Rango's life story is choreographed by Gore Verbinski—Depp’s pal and director of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN trilogy.  A band of mariachi owls is our Greek chorus. 

Rango scarcely avoids becoming dinner for a hungry hawk and befriends an itinerant iguana.  Ms. Bean delivers our forsaken friend to a dilapidated town where motley critters dress like the cast of Bonanza.  It’s a hopeless, arid place where the water supply has been inexplicably interrupted.  Fitting then, this dust bowl is called Dirt.  Rango feigns toughness during a saloon standoff—but the townsfolk buy his braggadocio after a freak accident makes the Hawaiian-shirted newcomer appear the genuine article.  The mayor (a tortoise) deputizes and charges him with protecting what little water remains.  With great power comes great responsibility, right?

The proverbial well runs dry when bandits abscond with said agua, giving the luckless lizard a chance to completely inhabit his role as sheriff-messiah of the forlorn (and perpetually parched).  All signs point to a neighboring family of ornery desert moles—but the Dirt constituents may also have a “mole” in their midst. 

Rango is exposed as a fraud by an outlaw rattlesnake with a machine-gun tail and Lee Van Cleef mustache.  Being “found out” is, of course, par for stories where would-be swashbucklers get to test their mettle.  Banishment brings Rango face-to-face with the “Spirit of the West” himself—an Eastwood looking-hombre who schools our protagonist on choosing one’s own destiny.  Endowed with backbone to match his prehensile tail, Rango returns for a Sergio Leone-inspired showdown.

It’s an eye-popping parable befitting a spectrum-skinned Shane, even if the heat has rendered Dirt a pastiche of mottled brown feathers and fur.  The palate only serves to make the Technicolored title character—whose forte is supposed to be camouflage—stand out even more from his sepia-toned peers.  The action is whisked along nicely by Hans Zimmer’s score (which borrows Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”), and the varmint voices are supplied by an all-star cast (Ned Beatty, Alfred Molina, Timothy Olyphant, Harry Dean Stanton).  Parents, watch out for that scary, sharp-tongued snake—he hisses a couple “hells” and “damns”—and some (subtle) jokes about prostate exams and fecal matter.  2 ½ out of 4 stars.