I think the metaphor broke my spleen.

Rango

(2011)

Absolutely beautiful animation, possibly the most consistently so I've seen for CGI. It's a shame the plot, a blend of Support Your Local Sheriff and Chinatown, doesn't quite live up to the visual imagingation that Gore Verbinski's precise eye brings to the film.

He originated the story, but should possibly have collaborated with a writer with more of a skewed vision than John Logan. Depp's Rango is one part Woody Allen, but has more than a touch of the quick-thinking broad humour Depp brings to his more cartoonish “real” performances.

There's a suitably select support cast (Ray Winstone, Harry Dean Stanton, Ned Beatty, Bill Nighy, Alfred Molina) and some nice touches (a glimpse of Hunter S Thompson, Timmy Olyphant channelling Clint Eastwood). Depp and Verbinski seem most at home in the flights into surreality the film occasionally takes, and you wish there was more of this. Nevertheless, it's a much better western than Cowboys and Aliens.

****

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