I wish I could ask them what it was that offended them because it is definitely a very strange movie but I wasn’t offended.
That said, I didn’t really care for it either. The artistic style I found off putting and there is a certain garishness to the story, dialogue I didn’t like.
It is a very strange movie and I appreciated some of the risks they took but it is not a pleasant film to watch. I don’t know if that makes sense but sometimes you look at a piece of art and you can see it is ambitious and groundbreaking and yet find it disgusting at the same time. That’s what Rango felt like to me.
It’s about a pet lizard named Rango who is abandoned in the desert. There are a lot of surrealist moments at the start with a armadillo that has been run over but is still alive who is delusional and then other animals he meets and then he is chased by a hawk in a long sequence. The story takes a long time to get going but eventually he makes it to an old west town called Dirt.
Everything in Dirt is ruled by water and there are a lot of bad guys- a Gila monster (Ray Winstone), a desert turtle (Ned Beatty), a rattlesnake (Bill Nighy), a mole (Harry Dean Stanton), a hawk that can’t speak, and a bunch of rats that I think were bad. Honestly I lost track after a while. There were so many characters and the story didn’t make much sense. Rango becomes Sheriff of Dirt and I guess that was explained but I missed it. But he fights outlaws and there are bar room brawls and standouts.
There is a vault that is opened which has the town’s water and the bank manager is killed and the turtle controls the vault. But they end up with only 6 days of water left.
About an hour into the movie they start on a journey to find water and I started to enjoy it more. There was more of a traditional narrative as opposed to the randomness of the earlier part of the movie. It is also a movie set in modern times so why can’t they get the water? It is also not like Great Mouse Detective where humans are living in the town and animals. No, this is just a town for animals. But it is set in the old west but not really but why?
It was just a confusing movie and I didn’t think it was funny or aesthetically pleasing. Even the way Rango’s eyes moved I found kind of unsettling and distracting. It was like looking at someone with a lazy eye (I have a lazy eye so I know of what I speak) and they never look you straight in the face but their eyes are constantly moving. There is also 2 scenes where a hawk (long scenes) chases Rango in a bottle and a vending machine that do nothing for the story.
I’ve rarely been more befuddled by a film. I guess it is one that just doesn’t appeal to me. I can see why others who appreciate randomness and the type of art love it. And if you are super knowledgeable about westerns than you might like it. Not everything has to be made for my aesthetic but it would have been nice to have at least a story I could follow with characters that made sense. I think I am pretty open minded when it comes to artistic expression and creative films.
As it is, its too cluttered, confusing, and convoluted.
Also, who is this movie made for? It’s not adult enough to be like a South Park or ‘adults only’ animated movie. But I can’t imagine any kids following the plot and myriad of characters or getting any of the jokes. Part of the problem is kids haven’t seen the Western movies it constantly spoofs. There is even a Dirty Harry cameo from Clint Eastwood. Most young adults haven’t seen many westerns let alone kids. I wish I had seen more Westerns and it is on my list so I think a lot of the homages and spoofs were lost on me. I don’t know. I just don’t get who the movie is geared towards?
It kind of felt like they dumped all their ideas into a canon and then just put it all on screen without regards to a cohesive story or characters that made sense or we could keep track of.
Giving a grade is tough because it is thoughtfully made but it just didn’t work for me. The last 45 minutes it gets better but I didn’t care for it. Sorry!
Overall Grade- D+