Rango (2011 film)
Directed by | Gore Verbinski |
Produced by | Gore Verbinski Graham King John B. Carls |
Screenplay by | John Logan |
Story by | Gore Verbinski John Logan James Byrkit |
Starring | Johnny Depp Isla Fisher Abigail Breslin Alfred Molina Bill Nighy Harry Dean Stanton Ray Winstone Timothy Olyphant |
Music by | Hans Zimmer |
ing by | Craig Wood |
Studio | Nickelodeon Movies Industrial Light & Magic GK Films Blind Wink |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date(s) | March 4, 2011 |
Running time | 107 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $135 million[1][2] |
Gross revenue | $38,000,000[3] |
Rango is a 2011 American computer-animated comedy western film directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Graham King. It features the voices of actors Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Bill Nighy, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Ned Beatty and Timothy Olyphant.
Plot
An unnamed pet chameleon (Johnny Depp) becomes accidentally stranded in the Nevada desert. After meeting an armadillo (Alfred Molina) who is seeking the mystical Spirit of the West, he narrowly avoids being eaten by a hawk. The next day, after having a surreal nightmare, he meets the lizard Beans (Isla Fisher), a rancher's daughter, who takes him to Dirt, a tiny, Old West town populated by desert animals.
While Beans discovers that the water reserves, stored in a water-cooler bottle in the bank, are dangerously low, the chameleon, using bravado and acting skills to fit in, presents himself as Rango, a tough drifter. He quickly runs afoul of the outlaw Bad Bill (Ray Winstone), and narrowly avoids a shootout when the hawk returns, scaring Bill and his partners off. A panicky Rango is chased by the hungry hawk until by pure luck he kills the predator by crushing it under a water tower he's accidentally caused to collapse. In response, Mayor Tortoise John (Ned Beatty) appoints Rango the new sheriff. A skeptical Beans demands that Rango investigate the water problem while the townsfolk fret that the hawk was the only thing keeping the gunslinger Rattlesnake Jake from returning to terrorize them.
That night, Rango inadvertently gives some mole robbers the location of the bank and tools to get into the vault. When the townsfolk find their water has been stolen. Rango organizes a posse that finds the body of the bank manager Merrimack (Stephen Root), mysteriously drowned in the desert. They eventually track down the robbers in their mountain hideout, only for their leader, Balthazar (Harry Dean Stanton), to reveal that his clan of moles, prairie dogs and others greatly outnumbers the posse. Nabbing the covered wagon water-bottle, the posse flees, chased in a large ground and air fight before discovering the bottle is empty. Despite the robbers professing that they'd discovered it empty, the posse takes them back to town for trial, perplexed as to who stole the water.
After Rango and Beans deduce that the Mayor has been buying all the land around town, Rango recalls the mayor telling him how controlling water equals control of everything. He confronts the mayor, who denies he has done anything wrong and shows Rango that he is building a modern city on the old land. With no proof of the mayor's wrongdoing, Rango leaves, while the mayor orders one of his men to call Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) — who soon arrives, firing shots with his gatling gun tail, and recognizing that Rango is a fake. Jake runs him out of town after humiliating him and making him admit that everything he told the town about himself is a lie.
Ashamed and no longer knowing who he is, Rango wanders the desert, and in a daze meets the Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant), a Clint Eastwood-esque cowboy who inspires him and tells him, "No man can walk out on his own story." With the aid of the armadillo and mystical moving cacti, Rango learns the source of Dirt's water is Las Vegas, and that someone has shut off the valve on a water line. Realizing the mayor's hand in this, Rango recruits the hill clan in his plan.
Returning to town, he calls out Jake for a duel — a diversion so that the hill folk and the cacti flood the town with water, sending Jake into the air. Wounded Bird is killed during the duel. The mayor, however, threatens Beans' life, and Rango surrenders. The two are put in the water tank to drown, but while the mayor prepares to shoot Jake using Rango's gun. However, the mayor doesn't know that Rango already removed its only bullet, and the trapped pair use it to break the tank, flooding the room and taking out the mayor and his men. An enraged Jake, after saulting Rango as a worthy opponent, nabs the helpless mayor and departs with his victim, as the town embraces Rango cleaning up Dirt.
The four Burrowing Owls have speaking and singing roles, but their voice actors are unknown.
Box office
Rango debuted in 3,917 theaters, grossing $9,750,000 on its first day, ranking number one at the box office.