In my never-ending search for the perfect animated feature, I went to see "Rango". I heard good things about it, so I set out to see the CG western.
It was a pretty thin crowd, 10 people tops, but they all laughed heartily at the crazy humor. And that was what the film was about – crazy, surreal humor.
Written and directed by Gore Verbitsky (of "Pirates of the Carribean" fame), the cartoon is full of bizarre and off the wall humor, great visuals as well as verbal gags, and of course it's filled with tons of classic Western references – Sergio Leone, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart (Destiny Rides Again), Chinatown, and great music from Quentin Tarantino, Mariachi to Ennio Morricone.
But the downside is the character design. The two leading characters, Rango and Bean (the female lead) were so ugly I had a very hard time connecting with them. The computer graphics were created by Industrial Light and Magic, so they must take full responsibility for the ugly design.
Also, there were way too many secondary characters and none of them stand out. (Look what Frank Capra or Toy Story does with secondary characters,) and the heavies were terribly designed, the hawk and the rattle snake. Why don't the spend a few bucks and get Peter DeSeve or a professional to get some really cool designs? I rate Rango a B-.
That ugliness is what put me off seeing it. I find that as I get older and time seems more valuable I just can't see spending 90 minutes watching something that basically looks repulsive . (and don't get me wrong: I don't think animation should only be cute Disney bunnies and stuff . But there is such a thing as "appealing ugly" designs , y'know what I mean ? It's the unappealing ugly like this and the Shrek films that I can't stomach).
ReplyDeleteGood point about making the secondary character's interesting , citing Frank Capra and Toy Story. Capra , in particular, seemed to populate every shot with interesting characters, yet they never outshone the star(s).