I recently had the pleasure of taking my two older boys to a birthday party at a movie theater and the move selection was “Rango”, the story of a loner gecko trying to acclimate a sheltered upbringing into a desert creature version of the Wild West. Without knowing much about the movie we went into the theater with a bunch of other kids and parents full of pizza and with sodas, popcorn and candy in hand.
The movie, in short, was a dud. While I had high hopes for the film — especially considering Mr. Depp’s range — it just didn’t deliver. And unlike the dialog in some of the other enjoyable kids films (Monsters Inc. comes to mind), this was for the most part way above what your average kid would appreciate. Don’t get me wrong, it was witty, but I didn’t hear any kids laughing unless a fart or burp noise was made. If the dialog was intended for the adults in the crowd, the plot surely was not.
I remember a friend telling me that The KLF wrote a book before publishing “3 AM Eternal” about the music industry. They basically said that in order to write a hit you needed to create a song that sounded “familiar” but not an exact copy of a song people already knew. This included the beat, the hook and the lyrics. If plagiarism is the way to success in music it certainly doesn’t carry over into Hollywood, where “Rango” steals the familiar plot lines from “Antz” and “Chinatown” to create a “been there” movie.
On top of the lack of originality, the language isn’t suitable for kids. I wasn’t thinking that a kids movie would include “damn” and “hell” — and trust me, I’m far from being a Puritan. While my kids have heard those words before, being engaged in a children’s tale of a gecko fighting to prove his legitimacy doesn’t need it. In fact, recalling the opening credits and seeing the Nickelodeon logo it really was disturbing to think that any vulgar language would improve this craptastic flick.
Overall I can’t recommend the movie. There was witty banter on Rango’s part throughout the movie and the human-like qualities of the characters were very appealing, however the overall plot and lack of originality made it a film worth skipping over — even when it comes to Netflix.
