RANGO - Wonderful, radical, revolutionary

RANGO is a revelation. It is one of the best films I have seen this year, one of the best animated films since TOY STORY, and must surely raise the bar in terms of what is seen as appropriate material for a children's film, and the level of ambition one can bring to the visuals in an animated film. I wonder if history will judge it as revolutionary as AVATAR in terms of bringing the craft of cinema forward and - contra AVATAR - showing us just how dazzling and immersive visuals can be without 3D, but when the CGI animators are guided by one of the best cinematographers working today, Roger Deakins (TRUE GRIT, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN).

The movie has been put together by the team behind PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - director Gore Verbinski and star Johnny Depp - and it's their best film to date - capturing the sheer energy and comedy of the original POTC film, but allying it to a stronger story and imbuing it with an indulgent love of cinema. For this is, above everything, a film for cineastes - a film about the joy of transformation - of being part of a story that you craft - and about living up to the Heroic Ideal. To that end, John Logan (GLADIATOR)'s screenplay leans heavily on the plot of 70s film noir, CHINATOWN, but lives in the shadow of all of those wonderful Clint Eastwood westerns, not to mention doffing its cap to FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and APOCALYPSE NOW among others.

Johnny Depp plays a pet lizard with no real friends but a vivid imagination. The lizard is the ultimate cinephile, indulging in wild cine-literate fantasies, but ultimately lonely and confused about who he really is. When a car accident leaves him wondering into a old western town in the Mojave desert, he takes the opportunity to reinvent himself as "Rango" - a gun-slinging hero along the lines of The Man With No Name. And boy does this town need a Hero. Some Evil man (obvious to anyone who's seen CHINATOWN) has been hoarding water, leaving the town to run dry, forcing humble farmers from their land....In order to sort this mess out, Rango has to over-come his fear, make good friends, and become a Real Hero, helped out by a wise armadillo (Al Molina) and a surreal dream featuring Timothy Olyphant as the Clint-like Spirit of the West.

What I love about Rango is its evident love for the genres it's referring to (in sharp contrast to the risible YOUR HIGHNESS) and its evident love for the textures of the western. I've never seen an animated film - typically full of shiny, bright, smooth CGI - look so dusty, weather-beaten and worn. The details of the fur, the clothes, the buildings is quite stunning and the film is drawn as if it really has been shot on old fashioned 35mm by the best cinematographer in the business. Add to that a story with real stakes and real emotional heart, voiced by actors at the top of their game. (Special mentions for Isla Fisher as Beans and Ned Beatty as the Mayor.) But most of all I love that this film neither patronises its young audience nor bores its adult audience - and yet doesn't pander to quick, cheap laughs with post-modern winks at popular culture - a trait I particularly detest in the SHREK films. Which other animated movie would dare to have a joke in which the word "thespians" is confused for "lesbians" - or a sequence in which the Hero cross-dresses?

All of this makes RANGO at once marvellously old-fashioned in its cinephilia, its textures and its wonderful photography, but also marvellously modern in its subversive adult humour and willingness to use surreal dream sequences. This really is a wonderful film - and one can only hope that other animated features rise to the challenge of matching its attention to detail and depth of vision.

RANGO is on global release in all bar Japan where it opens on September 23rd.

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME

PRINCE OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME is a movie that is easy to mock. It's based on a video game; features a bunch of Western actors bronzed up to play medieval Persian warlords; is full of hoky CGI and time-travel; and basically is about as credible as Ed Balls candidature for the Labour leadership. Think ALADDIN on steroids. But I have to say that it's not entirely unwatchable.

A newly buff Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, a street urchin (the very need to use such a ridiculous word as urchin should clue you into the basic nonsense-level here) plucked from poverty to become a Prince by the kindly king. Years later and Dastan is framed for the murder of his father, leaving two genuinely princely brothers and uncle rule in his stead. The rest of the film sees him try to find out who was really out to power-grab, although the casting of Ben Kingsley as the moustache-twirling Uncle is a give-away. The task is made easier by the fact that he's found a mysterious Macguffin whose sand can turn back time. Handily, this plot device comes complete with stuck-up but beautiful Princess-guardian, as played by Gemma Arterton.

Essentially, this is all hokum but enlivened by some really odd casting. Toby Kebbell turns up as a royal brother, for instance, and Alfred Molina is hillarious as an ostrich-race-running medieval gangsta. And what on earth is Mike Newell, of FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL fame, doing directing this thing? Anyway, I have nothing to say in my defence. This movie is rubbish, but I enjoyed it, albeit fast forwarding through the action scenes. There's something almost touching about how earnestly Gyllenhaal et al play their scenes, and Alfred Molina is worth the price of the DVD rental alone.

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME was released in May 2010 and is now available on DVD and on iTunes.

Additional tags: John Seale, Harry Gregson-Williams, Boaz Yaking, Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard, Jordan Mechner, Steve Toussaint, Richard Coyle, Ronald Picckup, Reece Ritchie

London Film Fest Day 7 - AN EDUCATION

AN EDUCATION is a British coming-of-age drama set in the swinging sixties, based on the memoirs of the British journalist Lynn Barber. It's essentially the story of an intelligent young girl swapping a place at Oxford (and a conventional life) with her dream of being an urban sophisticate, in the arms of charming man (Peter Sarsgaard). As I was attending another screening, Our Gmunden Correspondent took my ticket. Here are his thoughts:

"Just a few thoughts on An Education.

Yes it was nice. The film is a fine period drama on the clash of bourgeois and bohemian life in the early sixties, expressed in the ambivalent experiences of young Jenny, coming of age. There is everything a good film needs to have, a perfect script, great set design, catchy music, and, above all, impeccable performances of a dream cast (even if it sometimes felt a bit overacted, meaning that the actors seemed more to enjoy themselves in showing off their great talent and skill than actually embodying a persona; but good, no doubt). It is entertaining and a pleasure to watch and to listen to. If that's what we are looking for in a film, mission accomplished, all good. If we are setting higher standards, want to see revelations and revolutions in filmmaking, it seems like a little etude, do everything you are expected to do and you will get a good movie, which is not more than the sum of its parts, rather less even. It would be worth looking the flick just to hear the actors talk, devour the great sets and sounds, and accomplish the perfect editing, yet there is something missing. It lacks the subtlety of showing the inbetweens of lifestyles, that there is grey zone between good and bad, between the deeds society demands and the pleasures the individual needs. To cut it short: Watch it, enjoy it, don't think about it too much. Full stop."

AN EDUCATION played Sundance 2009 where John de Boorman won the Cinematography Award and Lone Scherfih won the Audience Award. It also played Berlin, Sydney, Brisbane, Toronto and Helsinki 2009. It is currently on release in New Zealand, the USA, Australia and Israel. It opens next week in the UK. It opens in February 2010 in the Netherlands and Germany and opens in April in Norway.

THE PINK PANTHER 2 - Cinema Hate-Crime

Peter Sellers made five great comedies playing the incapable but serendipitous French cop, Inspector Clouseau. Herbert Lom seethed with anger as his boss. Burt Kwouk exemplified physical comedy genius as his side-kick Cato. Those movies are Cinema Gold. That Steve Martin fool-headedly decided to remake the Clouseau movies, churning out the piss-poor 2006 film, was bad enough. That he lacked humility enough to try it again is unforgivable. The resulting cinema dreck troubled the multiplexes only briefly, and rolled onto DVD with a mere USD70million gross. Here's hoping that's the end of this humiliating little experiment.

As to the particulars, the plot sees The Tornado stealing priceless world historical arefacts as well as the eponymous French diamond. An international dream team of cops is brought together to track them down. Clouseau embarasses them all, almost loses his sweet-heart Nicole, but finally foils the thief. The movie is set in a stylised picture-postcard Europe, and peopled with characters in stylised costumes and deliberately hammy accents. One can only assume that the likes of Jeremy Irons, Lily Tomlin, Alfred Molina, Jean Reno and Andy Garcia were doing it for the phat cash alone. The exception is Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who presumably also did it to raise her profile in Western cinema, and whose uneven Anglo-Brit accent is presumably not deliberate. The physical comedy is predictable and worst of all, leans heavily on CGI. The direction is competent at best. The plot is utterly predictable. The only surprising thing about the film is that it us written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber who also wrote 500 DAYS OF SUMMER.

THE PINK PANTHER was released in spring 2009 and is available on DVD.