Dear Rango,
I do not limit my frequent forays into the fields of film to live action phenomena for a number of reasons, starting with my six year old heart and ending with Pixar Studios. More often than not, I find myself squealing and dragging my mature (and exasperated) friends to everything I can bribe them (Starbucks works wonders) to watch.
Needless to say, when I see Johnny Depp headlining an animated feature (that doesn't belong to Tim Burton's House of Crazy), I start hunting down innocent mortals to suffer through two hours of screaming babies at a matinee. What better than Captain Jack Sparrow playing a talking lizard in a pseudo-Western? I ask. The answer: nothing, except maybe Geoffrey Rush swinging in as a ninja. My recent spell of decent kids' flicks (How to Train Your Dragon, Tangled and, of course, Toy Story 3) lolled me into a sense of complacency and my excitement overrode my necessity for companionship and, apparently, my self-preservation skills. I hazarded a 12:30 showing, surrounded by neurotic, candy chewing kindergarteners.
And spent my time hoping someone would text me.
An odd reaction, to be sure, seeing as everything about you should add up to excellent, even without Geoffrey Rush. Rango literally falls out of his comfortable pseudo-life into the harsh reality of the real world, plays up a fake identity, acquires unmerited fame, falls from his pedestal, takes a spiritual journey and comes back to save the day while still managing to be (almost) painfully inept and awkward. A predictable (yet workable) plot, good for children, easy on the aching minds of long-suffering parents, that ought to work for the masses; especially, when it's paired with a big name star, a few coarse jokes, mariachi owls and stunning visuals.
I remain unimpressed.
And, apparently, so did the rest of the audience. Not one child laughed, leaving the adults to snort cynically at a number of "big person" jokes and yawn at the oppressive (and, sadly, predictable) political and social statements. My duel cognitive state as one third functional human and two thirds childish imagination should have given in to the world of talking lizards (and turtles and rabbits and groundhogs and crows and...); but, Rango, you failed me. I may have managed one giggle but it dribbled away like the water from Dirt Bank.
I can only conclude that the talking animals bored the adults and asking, “Mommy, what does that mean?” bored the kids. Adult’s brain in child’s clothing equals failure.
As for me, I'm not sure if I don't like Westerns as much as I thought (sorry, True Grit, let me change my opinion) or I'm growing out of kid's flicks (even as I plan my procurement of Tangled on Blu-ray) or if your environmental sentiments simply turned me off. For every second I sat slack-jawed over your beautiful graphics, I spent five minutes surfing Facebook to see what that friend of a friend of a friend (who I met once at a party in grade school) did last Christmas. For every moment that I wondered if Rango would find the culprits responsible for Dirt’s drought, I spent ten looking up pictures of what really happens when an armadillo fails to properly cross the road.
If I needed a lecture about "Waste Not" and "Take Care of the Environment" I could've retaken Honors Current Events.
Still Searching for the Spirit of the West,
Savvy
No comments:
Post a Comment