Not the best movie poster shot ever!
Rango
Your typical hero’s journey. And I mean typical.
So Jazminne and I managed to watch yet another film together, and this time, it was one I wasn’t going to feel uncomfortable seeing with her. Rango is typical kid’s fare, if a little too typical. Despite that, the film decidedly had some child-unfriendly themes, and it was compounded with a clear-cut love letter to Westerns of old that I just couldn’t quite appreciate as much as it target audience clearly would’ve appreciated more.
Rango follows the story of, well, Rango, an earlier-unnamed pet chameleon who thinks himself a great thespian while living out his fantasy life in his terrarium. En route across the Mojave desert, he ends up in the middle of the desert, and now finds himself in the town of Dirt, who are facing a water crisis.
Finding this to be his chance to make a name for himself, he musters up his swagger to pretend to be a ruthless gunslinging lawman, which lands him the job of sheriff in the town, a thankless job as he now has to address the town’s water crisis, not to mention their mayor’s shady tactics, bank-robbing moles, and a host of other challenges.
What will happen to him once the people of Dirt find out that he’s a bald-faced liar?
The eternal hero’s journey is summarised in the following important points: (1)The Call To Adventure, (2) The Refusal Of Adventure, (3)The Crossing Of The Threshold, (4) The Road Of Trials, (5) Meeting With The Goddess, and (6) The Return. There are other steps in the journey in general, but these are the most important parts.
When you think about it, this movie fits all of these stages quite handily. This made the movie pretty rote and predictable to me, as I knew more or less what was going to happen at which point. The first act when he found himself out of his terrarium was his call to adventure, and at first, he refused this call. He ended up crossing the threshold when he realized that the town of Dirt wouldn’t know who he really was so he could do anything he wanted, really. Trial after trial then came: he had to deal with the moles, he had to deal with the hawk, and he had to deal with the mayor, among other things. After his fall from grace, he met with the “goddess” who was, in this case, a CGI version of Clint Eastwood, I believe. Then finally, he had his triumphant return.
It was so by the numbers, but it was so well-done, particularly since the voice acting for the entire film was top-notch. Johnny Depp acquits himself very well as Rango, and the rest of the cast really do justice to their roles.
This isn’t a bad film. Not by a long stretch. It’s just that... I can’t bring myself to care about it. Beyond watching the film with Jazminne and really enjoying my time with her, I could hardly care less what was going on with the movie.
And this is unfortunately why I can’t really analyze the movie the way I normally do. I wasn’t too particularly impressed, and it really, really could’ve been better.
That being said, your moment of Zen for today...
Yiheee!
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