For those of you not familiar with the name, Gore Verbinski brought us movies like 'The Ring' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and one of my childhood favourites 'Mousehunt'.
None of these movies could be classified as typical kids' movies. 'Mousehunt' is a movie about two men trying to outsmart and kill a mouse, 'The Ring' is a horror/thriller movie and 'Pirates of the Caribbean', is not a movie you take your 5 year old to.
So keeping the above in mind, 'Rango' is a movie for the family, just not the family with kinder to primary school aged children.
I don't suggest this age limit because of gratuitous violence or inappropriate scenes; I suggest it because young kids are just not going to get it.
There are no shiny 3D effects, or pretty happy colours. Instead, our protagonist the chameleon Rango (Johnny Depp), is a lizard who finds himself in the middle of the desert, after being accidently tossed from his owner's car during an accident on the highway.
He ends up, after some interesting advice from a somewhat squished Armadillo, in a town called 'Dirt', where he, by a little bit of luck and a large amount of storytelling, finds himself appointed sheriff. Apparently the inhabitants of 'Dirt' are still trapped in the era of the great Western's.
Suddenly a lonely lizard has an opportunity to live out the adventures he has always dreamed about, re-inventing himself into a gunslinger from the West.
The movie really explores the ideas around what defines us. What makes you, you and him, him? Is it our words? Is it our actions? Or is it a little bit of both?
Obviously honesty and the problems that arise from telling one lie and watching it grow as more lies are made, to keep the original from being discovered, is another issue put forth by the movie. Is any lie really good? What if that lie is giving others hope, empowering them and equipping them?
It is wonderfully written, with the largest amount character development I have ever witnessed in an animated movie. Every one of the inhabitants of Dirt, bring an individual, if not somewhat dusty dynamic to the story.
These characters exude real feelings of helplessness and despair, and Australian's after a decade of drought, can really empathise with the water desperate towns people of Dirt.
Rango is not a traditional hero and his actions act as a reminder that God loves the flawed. He has a place for us in his plans and no matter who we are, or who we aren't, in the case of Rango, we are still special and treasured in our Maker's eyes.
'Rango' may not belong on the shelf next to 'Toy Story', 'Aladdin' or 'Whinne the Pooh', but it does deserve a place on the shelf just above.
There are a few adult references scattered throughout the film with one character taunting another saying "I'm going to slice your face off and use it to wipe my unmentionables." And in another scene Rango, who is a chameleon, claims to have a brother who is a rattlesnake which he explains by stating that his mother had an active social life.
Language is very light and drug references minor, with the town's people drinking cactus juice in the saloon and a couple of characters smoking and chewing tobacco.
The movie is in the style of a Western, so there are a number of guns being waved about and the film has the traditional horseback, gun firing chase scenes. But very few characters die in the movie, most just experience really big boo boos.
I give 'Rango' 4 out of 5 stars.
Language Light
Violence Light
Gore Light
Sexual references Light
Drugs Light
Fantasy themes Light