Rango: Critic Reviews

Neither Rango the mash-up movie nor Rango the lizard is particularly lovable. But there's no denying the intrigue in its combination of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It is not self-conscious knowingness that drives Rango but rather a quirky and sincere enthusiasm for all the strange stuff that has piled up in the filmmakers' heads over the years.

Gore Verbinski's sophisticated, extremely amusing CGI animated movie, a cartoon for adults as opposed to an adult cartoon...

Its strong suit is visual panache. It's too bad that consistent comedy and emotional resonance get lost amid the dust and cacti.

A sun-baked symphony of rust and dust, Rango has a spiky, unsentimental appeal, sending out slightly risque jokes to parents while staying safely out of the danger zone for kids.

"Rango'' is a highly watchable but somewhat frustrating mix of sloppy plotting, rascally attitude, and Big Action.

A rollicking, surreal, and existential kids' Western that worships at the altars of Sergio Leone, Hunter S. Thompson, and Chinatown, Rango drowns under the weight of discordant objectives and influences.

Sharp-edged, surreal, and often astonishing in its giddy creativity.

I've made a good case for seeing "Rango," and why not; an eye feast is still a feast in this lean multiplex season.

The film itself is a magically strange hybrid, a spoofy computer-animated Western acted out by anthropomorphic desert creatures.

Every other week, it seems there is some new creation full of fantastically realized creatures engaging in eye-tricking action. The ironic effect of this... is a so-what-else-you-got state of jaded exhaustion. And then along comes Rango.

Yes, [there are] enough nods to other sources to make Rango a bobblehead. But the movie, and much of John Logan's writing, is still pretty durn clever.

"...a fleet, quirky, computer-animated feature that I found ingenious, charming and almost entirely engaging."

Though young children may enjoy it, the film is built for viewers of any age with a taste for joyful anarchy.

"Rango" is some kind of a miracle: An animated comedy for smart moviegoers, wonderfully made, great to look at, wickedly satirical, and (gasp!) filmed in glorious 2-D.

Rango never shuts up, but he never has anything funny or touching or clever to say.

What elevates it above a cheeky romp is the skilled CGI work, not only the wealth of tactile detail lavished on the parched townsfolk but also the painterly, sand-swept vistas they call home.

You know those animated films that have bits that the parents will enjoy? Rango is mostly those bits.

It's an exuberant, audacious love letter to spaghetti westerns, masquerading as a kiddie cartoon. And it delivers deliciously on both levels.

It's refreshing to see an animated movie that doesn't look as though the idea for the Happy Meal came first.

Johnny Depp isn't the sort of star to blend in, so it's saying something that his turn as the world's most conspicuous chameleon in Rango is so full-bodied, you forget the actor and focus on the character.

An ultra-quirky animated Western with a vocal tour de force by Johnny Depp that's quite unlike anything I've ever seen.

It is funny, inventive and downright daft. But who is it for, what is it and most pointedly -- what is the point?

The whole enterprise is redolent of past movies (and drug trips), yet it somehow whiffs fresh.

With his first animated feature, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski shows ambitions considerably beyond producing the usual standard of most children's fare. To put it plainly, Rango is one weird movie.