Rango
Time Out New York Project: Issue #803, March 10-16, 2011
★★☆☆☆
Dir. Gore Verbinski. 2011. PG. 107mins. Voices of Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Timothy Olyphant.
A chameleon with no name (Depp) comes from out of the West (“the far West,” he stresses) to the water-starved town of Dirt. True to his nature, he just wants to blend in. But the reptile eventually adopts the titular moniker and becomes the burg’s unlikely, comically inept savior. Several quick-witted touches — such as a hilarious nod to Depp’s role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — can’t make up for Gore Verbinski’s leaden direction of this digitally animated feature. Once the initial cleverness wears off, the film becomes an endless slog, with headache-inducing set pieces (an aerial attack by prairie dogs — don’t ask — lamely cribs from Apocalypse Now) and aggressively plot-heavy exposition that leaves nothing to the imagination.—Keith Uhlich
