My First In-the-Theater Movie of the Year

Tonight I went to the theater with my brother Joel, and my cousin Shaina. We went to see "Rango". It was really, really good. If you like westerns you'll love Rango. Even though this was about a chameleon lost in the desert, it was a truly epic western. Just don't go expecting them to have cutified all the animals, like most animated movies do.



There were a few animals that got a slightly better face than their real world counterparts. The singing owl mariachi band, the little mouse girl, (Whose name I never caught till the credits, Pricilla) and the female lizard (Whose name was Beans and had curly hair) were the only "Cute" main characters in the entire film. Some might argue that Rango was cute too, but he was still very lizardy. Pascal, the chameleon in “Tangled”, was far more cutified than Rango was. The rest of the creatures all looked incredibly realistic, and most were downright ugly. Just like vultures, toads, moles, and other assorted vermin should be.

I love the fact that they ride roadrunners like horses.

Everything was amazingly animated, And some of the scenes were downright gorgeous. One of my favorite shots was a scene where the posse was riding through the desert, silhouetted by the setting sun.



The music for the movie was written by Hans Zimmer, one of my favorite composers. It has a very western feel to it, but you can tell he had a lot of fun with it. I especially liked his version of “Ride of the Valkyries” played on banjos during the air-raid-with-bats sequence.

Told you the animals were ugly.

The story was very well thought out. It far surpassed just about anything churned out by most animation studios these days, and it will definitely be a contender for best animated film at the Oscars next year. Pixar still makes the best animated films, but other animation companies are beginning to wake up to the fact that they need more than just cute animals spouting funny one liners, dancing, and making fart jokes to make a good movie. I enjoy the dancing animals too, but the best movies are the ones with a really gripping story to tell. The company that animated this film though, believe it or not, has never made an animated film before. It was made by ILM, Industrial Light and Magic, the special effects company responsible for a lot of big budget special effects heavy films, such as the Star Wars Trilogies. They definitely have an eye for detail, and I hope they make another animated film soon!

In case you’re interested, I will leave you with the trailer for the film.