Gore Verbinski’s homage to spaghetti westerns is realised through a surrealist anthropomorphic animation lens. Johnny Depp voices the titular hero, a chameleon with an identity crisis who during a car accident is left stranded in the Mojave desert and forced to make his own way in the world.

Although starting off with a contemporary setting an anachronistic movie unfolds as the lonely lizard befriends the townsfolk of Dirt with tall tales of daring-do. They’re an easily impressed bunch, so much so, they make him sheriff. Bad idea.

Director Verbinski and screenwriter John Logan fashion an occasionally dark story despite it being a bright and fun sort of film with talking animals and insects. It does have a ‘doped up’ vibe evident in several dream sequences and the general strangeness of the premise. Seeing lizards, owls and shrews riding on top of chickens is barking mad!

The older viewer will get all the references to John Ford, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Apocalypse Now, Star Wars and Chinatown. Indeed, part of the narrative features a scheming villain trying to control the water supply and there’s a Noah Cross-like villain who sounds a lot like John Huston. In fact it’s voiced by Ned Beatty, who featured as the baddie Lotso in Toy Story 3. Even the film’s title sounds like a play on the classic spaghetti western ‘Django’.

The cinematography, production design and animation is excellent. It could easily have been an indulgent mess but Verbinski gets the tone just about right. Even the end credits are well done. Depp does his comedy shtick routine which audiences lapped up in the Pirates movies but Rango is more Hunter S. Thompson-like than Captain Jack.

Rango at various times is a liar, a coward and a cheat (perfect spaghetti western material) but steps up to the plate in the end. Yes, the character undergoes a narrative arc inspired by a quest for identity. The chameleon is a friendless sort with dreams of becoming an actor.

Hans Zimmers’ Ennio Morricone pastiche score and mood pieces are genuinely thrilling and we’re even treated to a sort of bluegrass version of Ride of the Valkyries. Rango is smart, funny, inventive ( as mentioned, the posse ride chickens instead of horses and there’s a great aerial battle featuring bats) and most of all it’s entertaining.

A fine voice cast is assembled but this is Depp’s show. Isla Fisher, Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Nighy, Alfred Molina, Abigail Breslin and Timothy Olyphant all do well with what they have.

One senses an even darker prospect in Rango but since a truly adult version would never make as much money as one aimed at everybody, it’s easy to see why Verbinski choice the route he did.

So Rango is a film with wide appeal working both for the kids who’ll laugh at Rango and his comedy foibles and the adults will dig the surrealist dreamlike atmosphere and movie references. Highly recommended.

Rating: ★★★★☆

US Release: 4th March
UK Release: 4th March
Australia Release: 10th March