Lizard proves he has quite a tale

For your consideration … Rango is a smart and wise story about a chameleon (voiced by Johnny Depp) with no name in the Wild West. He lands there most unexpectedly after his terrarium is bumped from the cargo hold of a truck driving through the Mojave Desert. Desperate for water, he treks across the hot sand in search of a town called Dirt.

Dirt is almost as dry as its name suggests. Water is mighty scarce and the town ‘bank’ holds less than a week’s reserve of the stuff. It’s worth more than gold. As Mayor Tortoise John (Ned Beatty) points out, whoever controls the water, controls everything.

Water becomes an allegory for the townsfolk — all animals — looking for purpose and meaning in their lives. Every Wednesday they get allocated a small amount to drink like a sacrament during an elaborate ceremony involving rituals and prayers. It’s any wonder whether Dirt is an allegory for Earth and how soon we’re all going to be desperate for some clean water.

Even our lizard hero is on his own search for enlightenment. He starts out the movie in the middle of existential angst, asking, “Who am I?” He only takes the name Rango from the bottom of a bottle at Dirt’s bar, like he was Keyser Söze making up an identity in a detective’s office.

Depp is probably the most malleable actor to pull off this kind of manic performance: a lizard in a quandary, still charming as he looks inward. The next best thing would have been Jim Carrey and he would have spoiled this whole endeavour. Jack Black would have been devastating.

This is actually an adult story with politics, religion and philosophy weaving their ways through a kind of modern American history with little nuggets of pop culture appearing like pineapples in Jell-O. On Rango’s personal odyssey he encounters all manner of interesting critters as he learns more about himself, at one point from The Spirit of the West, a suspiciously familiar character in a western movie, except he drives a golf cart. As he lands into Dirt, we are reminded of the Lawrence of Arabia story — the outsider who arrives to become a saviour to many.

For these reasons, Rango ranks high. It blends narratives with ease and enjoyability. It frequently and freely drops wisdom like “people have to believe in something,” and “we all have our journeys to take,” and “we see what we need to see.”

Sometimes we see what we shouldn’t, though. Where the film falters (and it does so only slightly) is in some of the content. I wouldn’t take very young children for the same reason that Happy Feet wasn’t entirely child-friendly. Scary action sequences with fierce animals — here with human weapons — make me wonder what Hollywood is thinking when it decides on what to put into a so-called ‘animated family movie.’ It is rated ‘PG’ after all.

Nevertheless, it’s a fine picture with many fine voice actors. I didn’t even recognize Isla Fisher until I saw the credits roll. I had many concerns about how long director Gore Verbinski would have made this one, especially when considering his supersized Pirates of the Caribbean movies, were all snoozers. I attribute most of Rango’s genius to John Logan. This screenwriter is a kind of chameleon himself, surviving in any condition and adapting to different genres with ease. Maybe there’s a message there, too.