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Description
   All too often, animated movies and their studios overplay the generally cute and adorable tones of their films. 2010's past animated releases, Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, and Despicable Me, to name a few, weren't exactly the most edgy of films, but this is understandable as they were looking for a family audience. Usually, an animated film is automatically considered a family film by American audiences, but as countries like Japan have demonstrated, animation doesn't necessarily equal a family friendly film. Such is the case with Rango.
   The film opens with a mariachi band, made of owls, singing about the tale of Rango, a lizard that, though heroic in action, is going to die. After the short introduction, we meet Rango (Johnny Depp) while he is reciting Shakespeare amongst a variety of inanimate objects in his terrarium. Suddenly, merely minutes after realizing that a hero needs conflict, his terrarium is launched out of the back of a truck in the middle of a desert road. From there, he meets an interesting cast of characters, including a spiritual armadillo who sends him out in search of the town of Dirt. Upon reaching Dirt, an old, western town that looks ripped out of a Sergio Leone movie, Rango immediately realizes that he must fit in if he wants to survive. In order to do so, he weaves an epic tale about his adventures as a gunslinger. This garners him both the respect of the town commoners and the ill will of rival gunslingers.
   The plot of the film, with all its twists and turns, feels straight up western, with hints of films like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Chinatown. There is even an allusion to Apocalypse Now. The characters, except for Rango, also feel like they belong right alongside Clint Eastwood. The film is packed with references and tributes to its inspirations, even throwing in a Hunter S. Thompson reference along the way. This is a movie for movie watchers, essentially a send-up of the entire film industry, and the more movies you've seen the more you'll probably enjoy this film.
   The characters, though outlandish and insane, are also very interesting and very relatable, and they're what really drive this film. Rango is a quirky, terrified lizard who is unwillingly thrust into a world he previously had no knowledge even existed. His partner, Beans, is another strange lizard who, luckily, is from the town of Dirt. She actually has a condition that causes her to freeze in place for a short amount of time, almost like a reverse seizure. The entire cast of characters is just plain weird, but that's what makes Rango such a treat, not to mention the awesome rattlesnake gunslinger that comes in about halfway through the movie.
   The visual style here is astounding as well. Director Gore Verbinsky, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, truly shows off his cinematic eye with a mixture of gorgeous desert landscapes and the use of surreal lighting effects. Verbinsky actually allows the animation to free his creative side while opening up his range of audiences, and the mature tone is one of the best aspects of the film. Composer Hans Zimmer, of The Dark Knight and Inception fame, provides a wonderfully western score, too.
   Overall, this film is a blast. It has action, comedy, mystery, and even a small bit of romance. The animation is aesthetically pleasing, the cinematic landscapes are majestic, and the characters are just quirky enough to warrant a large amount of interest. Also, I can't help but smile whenever I catch a reference to some other fantastic film. Financially, the film performed moderately well by holding the number one and two spots in the box office in its first two weeks of release, respectively.  Rango is, by far, one of the best animated films to be released in the past decade and I definitely foresee it becoming an animated classic.

Description
   All too often, animated movies and their studios overplay the generally cute and adorable tones of their films. 2010's past animated releases, Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, and Despicable Me, to name a few, weren't exactly the most edgy of films, but this is understandable as they were looking for a family audience. Usually, an animated film is automatically considered a family film by American audiences, but as countries like Japan have demonstrated, animation doesn't necessarily equal a family friendly film. Such is the case with Rango.
   The film opens with a mariachi band, made of owls, singing about the tale of Rango, a lizard that, though heroic in action, is going to die. After the short introduction, we meet Rango (Johnny Depp) while he is reciting Shakespeare amongst a variety of inanimate objects in his terrarium. Suddenly, merely minutes after realizing that a hero needs conflict, his terrarium is launched out of the back of a truck in the middle of a desert road. From there, he meets an interesting cast of characters, including a spiritual armadillo who sends him out in search of the town of Dirt. Upon reaching Dirt, an old, western town that looks ripped out of a Sergio Leone movie, Rango immediately realizes that he must fit in if he wants to survive. In order to do so, he weaves an epic tale about his adventures as a gunslinger. This garners him both the respect of the town commoners and the ill will of rival gunslingers.
   The plot of the film, with all its twists and turns, feels straight up western, with hints of films like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Chinatown. There is even an allusion to Apocalypse Now. The characters, except for Rango, also feel like they belong right alongside Clint Eastwood. The film is packed with references and tributes to its inspirations, even throwing in a Hunter S. Thompson reference along the way. This is a movie for movie watchers, essentially a send-up of the entire film industry, and the more movies you've seen the more you'll probably enjoy this film.
   The characters, though outlandish and insane, are also very interesting and very relatable, and they're what really drive this film. Rango is a quirky, terrified lizard who is unwillingly thrust into a world he previously had no knowledge even existed. His partner, Beans, is another strange lizard who, luckily, is from the town of Dirt. She actually has a condition that causes her to freeze in place for a short amount of time, almost like a reverse seizure. The entire cast of characters is just plain weird, but that's what makes Rango such a treat, not to mention the awesome rattlesnake gunslinger that comes in about halfway through the movie.
   The visual style here is astounding as well. Director Gore Verbinsky, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, truly shows off his cinematic eye with a mixture of gorgeous desert landscapes and the use of surreal lighting effects. Verbinsky actually allows the animation to free his creative side while opening up his range of audiences, and the mature tone is one of the best aspects of the film. Composer Hans Zimmer, of The Dark Knight and Inception fame, provides a wonderfully western score, too.
   Overall, this film is a blast. It has action, comedy, mystery, and even a small bit of romance. The animation is aesthetically pleasing, the cinematic landscapes are majestic, and the characters are just quirky enough to warrant a large amount of interest. Also, I can't help but smile whenever I catch a reference to some other fantastic film. Financially, the film performed moderately well by holding the number one and two spots in the box office in its first two weeks of release, respectively.  Rango is, by far, one of the best animated films to be released in the past decade and I definitely foresee it becoming an animated classic.