Home Video with Abe: Rango (Capsule Review)

Rango
Directed by Gore Verbinski
Released March 4, 2011



One of this year’s most highly-acclaimed animated films is also one of this year’s most peculiar and disjointed pictures. This inexplicably PG-rated movie contains humor aimed almost entirely at adults. It’s a western parody that only occasionally succeeds at being effective, often trying to mimic but instead merely mirroring, creating an animated tale of a dramatic showdown that has been told many times better in classic films from the 1950s and 1960s. Physical comedy is present on a regular basis, but much of it is directed at a much younger crowd than what the rest of the film’s contest would suggest. The film gets interesting towards its end, but it drags on so much until then that it’s hardly still worthwhile. No matter what its target audience is, “Rango” is intriguing but ultimately inconsistent, and pales in comparison to Western comedies such as “Blazing Saddles,” with its animated format and animal kingdom adding little.

C