Revisiting Rango
Damn, I love “Rango” so much. It is absolutely gorgeous: vividly detailed, wildly colorful and thrillingly inventive from start to finish, even as it pays homage to such classic and eclectic films as “Chinatown,” “Apocalypse Now” and Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti Westerns. I had the pleasure of revisiting the 2011 animated comedy tonight with my son, Nicolas, who finally wanted to watch it with me now that he’s 4 1/2. I’d been suggesting it for a while because I knew he’d love it — and sure enough, after about 10 minutes, he turned to me and said: “Mommy, I love it!”
Here’s a look back at what my old co-host, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, and I said about “Rango” when we reviewed it on “Ebert Presents At the Movies.” Hopefully it’ll encourage you to seek it out or revisit the film yourself — whether not you have a kid to share it with.
Wow, I’m definitely going to see it now! I’ve been on an animation high ever since I saw Frozen and The Lego Movie. I’m actually shocked about how much people love this movie. Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars! It was once on Netflix instant streaming, but now it’s not. Damn it, now i gotta buy it!
I love this movie, too. It just works and hits the right notes–and it’s DIFFERENT! That alone makes it worth watching. It isn’t just like something else. It is full of visual surprises and fun performances. It is a bit underappreciated, so I’m very glad to see you calling attention to it again, Christy.
The trailer alone floored me. This film is a keeper – it has the right balance of smart and funny, with enough inside jokes to flatter the audience’s intelligence and enough physical comedy to make them laugh out loud. It has the comedic timing of a much older film – like the fictitious writers’ room from Dick Van Dyke or the real ones that gave us things like Red Skelton. You can watch it for its humor or for it’s astounding visuals. If this is what ILM can do as a second act after giving life to Pixar, they’ve done a great deal indeed.
@JP It’s a shame that ILM will never be doing anything like this again, likely. Full disclosure, I’m a former employee that was RIF’ed last year. But from what I hear, Lucasfilm/ILM is basically in the Star Wars business now. That’s good for Star Wars, but not so good for creative, unique projects like Rango. Rango was supposed to be the start of something new for ILM but that abruptly changed with the Disney purchase.
Not to rag on Disney, they’re very good at what they do. I’m a middle aged dude and I sorta loved Frozen, but Frozen is Frozen and I don’t feel like Disney would see the value in what was essentially an experimental project like Rango (which lost money at the box office.)