Rango (2011 film)

Rango
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Gore Verbinski
Screenplay by	John Logan
Story by	Gore Verbinski John Logan James Byrkit
Produced by	Gore Verbinski Graham King John B. Carls
Starring	Johnny Depp Isla Fisher Abigail Breslin Alfred Molina Bill Nighy Harry Dean Stanton Ray Winstone Timothy Olyphant
Edited by	Craig Wood
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Production companies	Nickelodeon Movies Industrial Light & Magic GK Films Blind Wink
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	March 4, 2011 (2011-03-04)
Running time	107 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$135 million
Box office	$145,497,976

Rango is a 2011 American computer-animated comedy western film directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Graham King. It features the voices of actors Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Bill Nighy, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Ned Beatty, and Timothy Olyphant.

Plot

An unnamed pet chameleon (Johnny Depp), whose only friends are some toys and a dead cricket, becomes accidentally stranded in the Nevada desert. After meeting an armadillo (Alfred Molina) who is seeking the mystical Spirit of the West, he narrowly avoids being eaten by a hawk. The next day, after having a surreal nightmare, he meets the lizard Beans (Isla Fisher), a rancher's daughter, who takes him to Dirt, a tiny, Old West town populated by desert animals.

While Beans discovers that the water reserves, stored in a water-cooler bottle in the bank, are dangerously low, the chameleon, using bravado and acting skills to fit in, presents himself as Rango, a tough drifter. He quickly runs afoul of the outlaw Bad Bill (Ray Winstone), and narrowly avoids a shootout when the hawk returns, scaring Bill and his partners off. A panicky Rango is chased by the hungry hawk until by pure luck he kills the predator by crushing it under an empty water tower he's accidentally caused to collapse. In response, Mayor Tortoise John (Ned Beatty) appoints Rango the new sheriff. A skeptical Beans demands that Rango investigate the water problem while the townsfolk fret that the hawk was the only thing keeping the gunslinger Rattlesnake Jake from returning to terrorize them.

That night, Rango inadvertently gives some mole robbers the location of the bank and tools to get into the vault. When the townsfolk find their water has been stolen. Rango organizes a posse that finds the body of bank manager Merrimack (Stephen Root), mysteriously drowned in the desert. They eventually track down the robbers in their mountain hideout, only for their leader, Balthazar (Harry Dean Stanton), to reveal that his clan of moles, prairie dogs and others greatly outnumbers the posse. Nabbing the covered wagon water-bottle, the posse flees, chased in a large ground and air fight before discovering the bottle is empty. Despite the robbers professing that they'd discovered it empty, the posse takes them back to town for trial, perplexed as to who stole the water.

After Rango and Beans deduce that the Mayor has been buying all the land around town, Rango recalls the mayor telling him how controlling water equals control of everything. He confronts the mayor, who denies he has done anything wrong and shows Rango that he is building a modern city on the old land. With no proof of the mayor's wrongdoing, Rango leaves, while the mayor orders one of his men to call Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) — who soon arrives, firing shots with his gatling gun tail, and recognizing that Rango is a fake. Jake runs him out of town after humiliating him and making him admit that everything he told the town about himself is a lie.

Ashamed and no longer knowing who he is, Rango wanders the desert, finds his old friends (the toys) and in a daze meets the Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant), a cowboy whom Rango identifies as the Man with No Name. The Spirit inspires Rango and tells him, "No man can walk out on his own story." With the aid of the armadillo and mystical moving cacti, Rango learns the source of Dirt's water is Las Vegas, and that someone has shut off the valve on a water line. Realizing the mayor's hand in this, Rango recruits the hill clan in his plan.

Returning to town, he calls out Jake for a duel — a diversion so that the hill folk and the cacti can flood the town with water, with a geyser sending Jake into the air. The mayor threatens Beans' life, forcing Rango to surrender. The two are put into the water tank to drown, in which they kiss, while the mayor prepares to shoot Jake using Rango's gun, telling him that the old western times are over and that Jake will be forgotten just like Rango. The trapped Beans and Rango use a bullet to break the tank, flooding the room and taking out the mayor and his men. Jake prepares to attack Rango and Beans but sees the one bullet laying in the wet sand saying "one bullet" remembering that Rango said he would end this whole ordeal with one bullet. Acknowleging that Rango is a worthy opponent, he then grabs Mayor Turtle John and drags him into the desert to take his revenge. Rango, Beans and the other citizens of Dirt celebrate the return of the water. Throughout the film, an owl mariachi band provides commentary that breaks the fourth wall.

Cast

Source:

• Johnny Depp as Rango, a chameleon
• Isla Fisher as Beans, a desert iguana
• Abigail Breslin as Priscilla, a cactus mouse
• Ned Beatty as Tortoise John, Mayor of Dirt, a desert tortoise
• Alfred Molina as Roadkill, an armadillo
• Bill Nighy as Rattlesnake Jake, a rattlesnake
• Stephen Root as:
  • Doc, a rabbit
  • Merrimack, a Mexican ground squirrel
  • Mister Snuggles
• Harry Dean Stanton as Balthazar, a mole
• Maile Flanagan as Lucky
• Timothy Olyphant as the Spirit of the West
• Ray Winstone as Bad Bill, a gila monster
• Ian Abercrombie as Ambrose, a burrowing owl
• Gil Birmingham as Wounded Bird, a Chihuahuan raven
• James Ward Byrkit as:
  • Waffles, a horned toad
  • Gordy Papa
  • Joad
  • Cousin Murt
  • Curlie Knife Attacker
  • Rodent Kid
• Claudia Black as Angelique, a fox
• Blake Clark as Buford, a Sonoran Desert toad
• John Cothran, Jr. as Elgin, a bobcat
• Patrika Darbo as:
  • Delilah
  • Maybelle
• George DelHoyo as Señor Flan, a member of the owl mariachi band who plays the accordion
• Charles Fleischer as Elbows
• Beth Grant as Bonnie
• Ryan Hurst as Jedidiah
• Vincent Kartheiser as:
  • Ezekiel
  • Lasso Rodent
• Hemky Madera as Chorizo, a shrew
• Alex Manugian as Spoons, a mouse
• Mark McCreery as Parsons
• Joe Nunez as Rock-Eye
• Chris Parson as:
  • Hazel Moats
  • Kinski, an antelope jackrabbit
  • Stump, a jackrabbit
  • Clinker
  • Lenny
  • Boseefus
  • Dirt Kid
• Lew Temple as:
  • Furgus
  • Hitch
• Alanna Ubach as:
  • Boo Cletus
  • Fresca Miss
  • Daisy
• Gore Verbinski as:
  • Sergeant Turley
  • Crevice
  • Slim
  • Lupe, a member of the owl mariachi band who plays the violin.
• Kym Whitley as Melonee
• Keith Campbell as Sod buster

Development

The film was produced by Nickelodeon Movies, Gore Verbinski's production company Blind Wink, and Graham King's GK Films. The CGI animation was created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), marking the first feature animation done by ILM, generally a special effects company. During voice recording, the actors were given costumes and sets to "help give them the feel of the Wild West". Star Johnny Depp had a 20-day window in which he could voice his role as Rango, and the filmmakers scheduled the supporting actors so as they could do their scenes with Depp and interact with him. Verbinski said his attempt with Rango was to do a "small" film after the large-scale Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, but that he underestimated how painstaking and time-consuming animated filmmaking is.

Marketing

Rango's teaser trailer was released on June 9, 2010, along with the film's official site, RangoMovie.com. It shows an open desert highway and a orange, wind-up plastic fish floating slowly across the road. On June 28, 2010, the first poster was released, showing the character Rango. A two-minute film trailer was released June 29, 2010. Another trailer was released December 14, 2010. The trailer was fully shown on TV during a Nickelodeon airing of iCarly. It features the song "The Whip" by Locksley. A 30-second spot was made specifically to run during Superbowl XLV on February 6, 2011.

Reception

Critical

Rango received mostly positive reviews. As of March 4, 2011, it has an 89% rating on the film critics aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 157 reviews. The site's consensus says, "It may not be as charming as it thinks it is — and it certainly isn't for kids — but Rango is a smart, giddily creative burst of beautifully animated entertainment" Richard Corliss of Time applauded the "savvy humor" and called the voice actors "flat-out flawless." Bob Mondello of National Public Radio observed that "Rango's not just a kiddie-flick (though it has enough silly slapstick to qualify as a pretty good one). It's a real movie lover's movie, conceived as a Blazing Saddles-like comic commentary on genre that's as back-lot savvy as it is light in the saddle." Frank Lovece of Film Journal International, noting the nervous but improvising hero's resemblance to the Don Knotts character in The Shakiest Gun in the West, echoed this, saying that "with healthy doses of Carlos Castaneda, Sergio Leone, Hunter S. Thompson, Chuck Jones and Chinatown ... this [is] the kid-movie equivalent of a Quentin Tarantino picture. There's no gory violence or swearing, of course, but there sure is a film buff's parade of great movie moments." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "some kind of a miracle: An animated comedy for smart moviegoers, wonderfully made, great to look at, wickedly satirical.... The movie respects the tradition of painstakingly drawn animated classics, and does interesting things with space and perspective with its wild action sequences." In one of the few negative reviews, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune acknowledged its "considerable care and craft" but called it "completely soulless" and that watching it "with a big suburban preview audience was instructive. Not much laughter. Moans and sobs of pre-teen fright whenever Rattlesnake Jake slithered into view, threatening murder."

Box office

In the USA and Canada, Rango debuted in 3,917 theaters, grossing $9,608,091 on its first day and $38,079,323 during its opening weekend, ranking number one at the box office. Overseas during its first weekend it earned $16,770,243 in 33 countries. As of March 7, 2011 it has earned $60,607,752 worldwide.

Video games

Console games

Electronic Arts released a video game based on the film. It is rated E10+ and was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, and Wii.

Online games

Funtactix launched Rango: The World, a browser-based virtual world set in the Rango universe, on March 4, 2011, the day of the film's release.

External links

• Official website
• Rango at AllMovie
• Rango at IMDb
• Template:Bcdb title
• Rango at Metacritic