Rango

Gore Verbinski certainly knows how to paint a pretty picture, so it's no surprise that the director's first foray into the medium of animation, a western tribute titled Rango, is filled with exquisitely rendered imagery. But I'd also argue that Verbinski's skills weigh so heavily in favour of the visuals that everything else feels strained and hollow. I haven't had a particularly good time with most of Verbinski's movies (The Ring, The Mexican, and his Pirates of the Caribbean sequels are all flimsy and forgettable), so there's clearly something about Verbinski that rubs me the wrong way. And that something hasn't gotten any better when it comes to Rango.

Opening with an inspired introduction to an imaginative chameleon who will soon adopt the name of Rango (voiced by Johnny Depp), the movie shows promise from the start. Rango the chameleon leads a lonely life in his tank, joined by a wind-up goldfish, a plastic palm tree, and a Barbie doll that is conspicuously missing both its head and legs. Rango enjoys playing the hero in simple plays that he puts on for nobody but himself. To make matters sadder, Rango is facing an existential crisis: who is he, really, and what is his purpose in life? These few opening minutes are quite a bit of fun, perhaps more than anything for their promise of where this could lead, but at least they feel refreshing

Then Rango's tank falls off the vehicle that is transporting him and he finds himself stranded in the middle of the desert. It's time for the story to truly begin and it's time for the movie to shed its charm in favour of bad jokes and a pitifully predictable character arc. It still looks pretty, but it isn't long before Rango begins vacillating between adult humour and kiddie humour without any great success on either side. The adult jokes are clearly intended to go over children's heads, so why isn't Rango simply aimed at adults? The jokes would still be lame (it's painfully obvious that when the word thespian shows up, it's going to be mistaken by some character for lesbian), but at least the movie's identity would be intact.

Instead, Verbinski's flick takes the lame, easy route and simply gives one joke to adults (Rango asks the decapitated Barbie doll if her breasts are real!) and one to kids (fart belch fart). That's pretty much the comedic structure for the rest of the movie and it becomes rather frustrating that the movie never finds a happy medium between the two approaches. It also never has the guts to really stand out as an adult animated movie, a move that at least would have spared us some of the scatological humour. There are tons of gags that are clearly intended for kids, but they're executed with no imagination and feel stale even before the punch line hits.

Example: Rango steps on to a narrow walkway suspended high in the air. As he does so, he cautions the people following behind him to not look down. A beat passes and Rango looks down, yelping in fear. Yeah, hilarious. I never saw that one coming. In addition to such aged kiddie jokes, there's a seemingly endless parade of predictable slapstick moments to be found throughout the movie. All this mixed in with a moment where one character mistakenly refers to an anagram as a mammogram. My belly is more likely to ache from an ulcer than from laughing too much at this point.

So goes Rango, which wants to be an adult comedy, but is afraid to venture far enough outside its comfort zone to abandon all the fart jokes. The plot does little to liven up the proceedings. Borrowing heavily from noir classic Chinatown, Rango is about what happens when the chameleon hero-to-be wanders into a dusty town that is in desperate need of water. Armed with a pile of lies and outrageous stories, Rango is named sheriff of the town and so he embarks on a series of adventures to solve the mysterious water crisis. The story is then peppered with action sequences and recycled gags as we are introduced to what is likely the ugliest collection of animated animals I have ever seen.

Moles, bats, cats, rats, and many others are all physically designed with such detail that their more hideous features are significantly highlighted. They're not necessarily easy on the eyes (if the camera was real and not virtual, I imagine the lens would shatter), but it is nice to see an animated movie where furry creatures are made to look so entirely unattractive. The irony of such elaborately gorgeous animation (almost photorealistic at times) being used to bring such ugly animals to life is not lost, which ensures that Rango's visual accomplishments are worthy of much praise. It helps that the brilliant Roger Deakins lends his talents to the movie as a "cinematography consultant", which is unique in the world of animation. The virtual lighting is especially striking, which is important considering how integral the dry heat and beating sun are to the movie's sense of conflict.

But while Rango's visuals continue to impress and the decrepit characters are further proof of attempts to separate the movie from its kiddie-oriented cousins, the jokes keep falling with a thud and the story sinks deep into the mire of predictability. Rango himself is a passable character and Depp's voice work is at least less irritating than his Jack Sparrow shtick that was previously created under the direction of Verbinski. Even then, the hero's existential crisis is never really explored and he ends up traveling the most obvious path imaginable. The other characters are either lame or annoying and a scene where the hero's posse sits around a campfire and discusses all the strange things they've previously found in their excrement did nothing to endear me to them.

I couldn't muster up much interest in anything past the five minute mark of Rango and the attempts at comedy from that point on are excruciatingly awful. Sure, it looks pretty, but the movie's personality is split between boob jokes for adults and bodily function jokes for kids. I'm kind of surprised that none of the characters are ever defecated upon (oops, belated spoiler alert), so I guess I should be happy that the scatological humour, while omnipresent, doesn't quite go so far as that. Either way, I could barely emit a chuckle during the movie, despite Rango's many efforts to achieve hilarity. Perhaps I need a longer break from Verbinski (I sort of thought the four year gap between the dully disastrous third Pirates of the Caribbean movie and this was long enough) or perhaps I need to learn how to mentally block fart jokes from penetrating my mind. But what is most frustrating about Rango is how it so quickly squanders its potential. An imaginative chameleon questioning his place in the world is a wonderful starting point filled with promise. I just don't want to know what's in his poop.