Rango - Gore Verbinski - Johnny Depp
This film is a crucial milestone in cinematic history.
OK I loved it and we tend to say silly things when we’re in love, but there is something quite unique about this movie.
I remember standing with my seven year old daughter in the local cinema looking at a poster that I couldn’t take my eyes off. Because firstly it had a picture of an impossible creature who despite his asymmetric head and spindly bent neck actually looked pretty cool, and secondly my daughter couldn’t take her eyes off it either.
This friends is the power of art. That ability to make people stop and spend their valuable spare time for nothing.
Pixar set the new technical standard for animated movies with Toy Story and have continued to push the boundaries with WALL-E, but this movie has the vital innovation of a massive art budget.
Every character in what would be an enormous cast in a conventional movie, could carry a spin-off alone.
The direction is a beautiful homage to the Spaghetti Westerns of the 70’s and there’s a calmness to the whole deal that gives you space to think and drink in the fantastic sets.
On the geek side, the use of anamorphic lens effect (used extensively in WALL-E to recreate the distortions produced filming in Cinemascope) was for me incredibly nostalgic but would that mean the same to a teenager today? Or will that “new” feeling come to be associated with now?
Maximage.
