Rango is quite possibly after such a long time the best Non-Pixar American animated film yet. And the reason why its labeled that is because the actual best Non-Pixar animated films goes to Hayao Miyazaki's films like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. But hell, I'll just say it. It kicks the crap out of anything Dreamworks. Because I never seen anything outside of Pixar that puts so much into the level of detail and design and as well as keeping such a good balance of writing and references from the obvious (Clint Eastwood/Spaghetti Westerns) to the obscure (Hunter S. Thompson). Though with its many faults, the film is thoroughly entertaining and solid enough.
Starting the film off triumphantly by the group of owl mariachis, introduces a chameleon, who is really not named Rango (played amazingly as always by Johnny Depp) with his own complexity of identity crisis and loneliness, longing for any interaction and self-worth when he's only boxed in a glass pet container. Fate plays its part when his glass pet container falls off the owner's car, leaving the nameless chameleon to fend off in the scorching, unforgiving desert and wind himself in the town of Dirt, run by colorful (if you count as mud dirt brown) and ruthless civilized animals. Seeking an opportunity to blend in, he adapts the identity of a badass by the name of Rango and spread his own fictional tales of heroism and adventures to all of the townspeople. Its a matter of time before his lies doesn't last long in the wild and violent west. The story can be a tad bit formulaic, but it gets much from all the visual and referential cues from classic westerns and surreal hallucinations.
Johnny Depp has been doing voice-acting especially with his role on Corpse Bride, but this is the first time he truly act out for an animated character. Never was he a stiff board like in Corpse Bride, Depp brought out a sizable range for the character for the right moments and the right timing as well giving that much complexity and fun. Probably one of the joys of this film is hearing the voice performances for the characters and finding out the actors at the end credits that you wouldn't realize it was them playing those characters. The voice performances are just amazing and blends it so well with the western genre. I mean you wouldn't have guess who would provided the voice to the most iconic character of all of the western genre.
The character designs are so unique and impressive that they nearly cancel out the "uncanny valley" in going between realism and cartoonish. All have a quirky and detailed portrayals of western character traits and all behave and act like characters from a true western film. When it comes to cinematography and mis-en-scenes, it is just beautiful and jaw-dropping to look whether it is the harsh backdrop of the west to the macro-scale look of a flower. There are times you couldn't tell that it is an CG-animated film, more convincing than (I dare-say it) Avatar. Yes another Avatar-bashing moment for me and I won't stop (how much I hate that film). If there are few things I would have complaints for the film are that are some red herrings in the plot that can be a bit of letdown.
Despite being formulaic and flawed that stopped this film from being an animated perfection, this is still one of a kind. Being really original in not following the typical pattern from other animated studios like Dreamworks or even Pixar, this and Fantastic Mr Fox are the ones that follow their own shtick.
4 out of 5 stars
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