Reviews
The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
"Depp is in prodigious vocal form – Hunter S. Thompson meets Jack Sparrow meets Kermit the Frog – and the digital detailing, especially on Rango, (bulging frazzled eyes, fine-tuned twitches and gulps), is a joy."
02/03/2011
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The Guardian
Steve Rose
"There's much to enjoy in the surreal dream sequences and western spoofery, with nods to everything from Sergio Leone to Blazing Saddles to Chinatown."
03/03/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
Tim Robey
"Rango is essentially “Fear, Loathing, and Being a Lizard in the Nevada Desert”, a paranoid western, and a remake of Chinatown rolled into one. As this description might imply, it’s hard to know what children are going to make of it, but best just load them up with sherbet and see what happens. If they love it, you may have to start them off on Twin Peaks next."
03/03/2011
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The Times
Kate Muir
"A funny, demented homage to every great cowboy movie, Rango is an animated film starring Johnny Depp as a pop-eyed green chameleon who inadvertently becomes a sheriff in a one-horse town where the horse can talk. This is a spaghetti western aimed at the tinned spaghetti hoop demographic, but adults will love it too."
03/03/2011
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Variety
Peter Debruge
"Depp is but one voice in the all-around impressive ensemble Gore Verbinski assembles for his astonishingly adult-skewing animated debut, a comedic riff on the classic Wild West formula that could, if viewed in the right light, just as easily serve as one long "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"-style hallucination."
01/03/2011
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
"What children will make of in-jokes about Hunter S Thompson and Clint Eastwood is anyone's guess, but they should enjoy the magnificent setpieces – one chase involving a giant metal-beaked hawk is priceless – while Johnny Depp's puckish, free-associating spiel has an eccentric charm all of its own. It's one of his greatest roles. "
04/03/2011
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The Independent on Sunday
Nicholas Barber
"There are sly jokes about Hunter S Thompson and immersive theatre, there are deaths and verbal flourishes that wouldn't have been out of place in True Grit, and there's a storyline that recalls Chinatown and There Will Be Blood. I'm not saying that Rango is in quite the same class as those films, but it's defiantly eccentric and often very funny."
06/03/2011
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The Sunday Times
Cosmo Landesman
"The artwork is often stunning, and Verbinski has bravely avoided 3-D and a screenful of cute creatures. Depp is in fine form. Rango is a little too rich in references (from Chinatown to Apocalypse Now), but frequently funny and inventive."
06/03/2011
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The Observer
Philip French
"...sophisticated, extremely amusing CGI animated movie, a cartoon for adults as opposed to an adult cartoon..."
06/03/2011
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Time Out
Tom Huddleston
"There are some wonderful things in ‘Rango’: the dialogue is witty, the animation is dizzying and the action is stunningly choreographed. It’s a film of astounding detail, from the marks on Rango’s skin to countless little in-jokes and references. But there’s the problem: the film is so convinced of its genius, throwing in a twist from ‘Chinatown’ here, a cameo from Hunter S Thompson there, that it feels pleased with itself. "
03/03/2011
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