Whiskey's for Drinking, Water's for Fighting

At the end of Rango (2010, directed by Gore Verbinski), my moviegoing companion turned to me and asked: "How much of that did I miss because I don't like Westerns." "It's not just Westerns," I told her. This is another in-jokey animated adventure that plays with the abandoned toys of the Western genre, to which it adds a level of grotesquerie not usually included in such movies. None of the characters could be described as "cute." For the most part, that doesn't really mitigate the fact that this is not terribly original. It's not bad, for all that, though, and some of the in-jokes are of a rarefied, non-kid friendly sort. Certainly, even sophisticated children aren't going to recognize the cameo by Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, or the fact that the main character's visual design is at least partially based on the poster art for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with which it shares star Johnny Depp.

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