Yesterday, my birthday (53), that cartoon was Rango and I went with my daughter (16.9). We were 10 minutes late, so that voids my right to give a rating or score according to the Association of Movie Reviewing Bloggers. Here's someone else's review, giving more of the storyline (my reviews are generally for people who've seen the movie).
ILM knows how to do fire, water and earth (dirt, desert). The alchemy of Clint Eastwood style spaghetti westerns plays in full force here, right down to the religious fervor of the beleaguered. Many films get the nod. A thousand Wild West movies crowd into one.
The time is now though. The characters are playing out this retro "we can't be gunslingers anymore" narrative while Las Vegas is already fully developed. It's the 21st century we get to forget. For an hour, we're at home with our ancestor creatures -- most of them movie stereotypes...
Which stereotypes cartoons have an uncanny ability to reinforce, or even create from scratch, given the effectiveness of animators in their presentation of ethnography, part real, part fiction.
Only the human imagination itself is as powerful.
Rango is richly textured. If you haven't seen it, see it for the scenery and music if nothing else, though I'm not myself complaining about the characters and their appreciation for the value of potable water.
