I finally got a chance to sit down and watch Rango, and I can’t believe I waited as long as I did. It’s such a good movie.
This film is a bit of a reunion for the PotC crew of Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp, who obviously work very well together based on their track record. Throw in Bill Nighy for good measure, and you’ve got the makings.
While it’s a family film, it doesn’t pander to it’s audience. This is something that Nickelodeon does well most of the time, and this is one of them. It takes the best ideas of the western and sets them in a wonderful anthropomorphic setting. The best part of it is the realistic scale of an animal world and the very realistic portrayal of the animals (minus the fact that they walk around on two legs and talk); Rango is set in the real world, but in the animal subset of it.
The character of Rango is really fantastic as well. He’s a family pet who finds himself in the wild and must find a way to survive. His only friends as the story begins are a collection of toys left in his tank which he uses to create performance pieces. This lizard is a born storyteller just looking for an audience, and when he finds himself in a small western town he takes the opportunity to practice his skills as a storyteller and character creator, which of course get him in trouble.
The story takes some of the best elements of the Spaghetti Western, turning Rango (which is not his real name) into a Man with No Name/Support Your Local Sheriff kind of character. There are even some direct references to the Man with No Name (as well as Hunter Thompson, which is a funny moment early on.
Verbinski likes to create some surrealist imagery in his movies. He did it in the third Pirates movie and he does it again here when Rango reaches the mythical “other side of the road” at a pivotal moment of self-discovery.
Rango is a fun movie, and it is definitely worth checking out and enjoying with family and friends.
William, the Movie Nerdfighter
who related to early Rango more than he felt comfortable with
District 9 is a 10!
August 23, 2009For the most part, science fiction is formulaic and predictable. We go off to some far-off future place (even if it was “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far way) with crazy technological spectacle and curious alien life and just . While District 9 has both technological spectacle and curious alien life, it’s anything but formulaic.
It seems very rare that sci-fi movies are also thought-provoking (unless you’re a sci-fi nerd like myself and you spend plenty of time afterwards studying the theories set forth). This particular science fiction movie feels like it could easily become science fact.
Using a great deal of social commentary, Neill Blomkamp says a lot about how we treat people (human or not) who may seem different. Setting the film in Johannesburg, South Africa, an area that is familiar with many issues similar to the segregation dealt with in D-9, Blomkamp uses some pretty amazing computer animation and documentary-style storytelling to tell the story of a rather unique alien “invasion.”
The short version, 20 years ago an alien space-ship appeared in the skies over Johannesburg and lost it’s command module. This stranded the aliens on Earth. The government eventually boarded the ship to discover a whole host of “prawns” (the derogatory term for this race) and moved them down to the surface. The “prawns” quickly began to adapt to their surroundings and mimicked most shanty-town, poverty-stricken cultures. Certain criminal elements moved in to gain access to the advanced technology the “prawns” possessed.
The shanty-town, called District 9, is governed by a company called Multinational United (MNU). The movie is the story of MNU’s efforts to evict the aliens from District 9 into the newly sanctioned “District 10” lead by MNU employee Wikus van der Merwe. A documentary crew follows Wikus and the rest of his team through their day evicting “prawns”. Along the way, we see interviews with MNU employees and specialists in various aspects of alien life.
The first half of this movie truly does have a documentary feel to it. It seems like this could actually be happening right now.
District 9 is in the same category of Blade Runner and Children of Men for emotionally-charged, thought-provoking science fiction that truly feels like it’s right around the corner from actually happening. One of the initial goals of science fiction was to show us the error of our ways by presenting a unique world-view.
District 9 delivers on that goal and is simply amazing to see.
See this movie! It’s a must.
William, the Movie Nerdfighter
who may be going to see this movie again before it leaves the theaters.
Tags:alien, district 9, johannesburg, mnu, multinational united, neill blomkamp, peter jackson, prawns, science fiction, social commentary, south africa
Posted in Movies, Postive Reviews, Ramblings, Reviews | 2 Comments »