Rango

Why do audiences gleefully accept ugly heroes in animated films? Perhaps because handsome or beautiful cartoon figures look bland and unamusing? The Shrek series has ended, but the ogre and Fiona (and Donkey) have a worthy successor in Nickelodeon's Rango.

All the movie's characters are grotesquely, brilliantly and lovably spotty, peculiar or deformed, starting with the pet chameleon who's the anti-hero, Rango. For his first animated movie, director Gore Verbinski wisely worked with the actor who'd made his tongue-in-cheeky Pirates of the Caribbean such an exceptional action-adventure loving parody, Johnny Depp. This time, Depp weaves a dozen different tones into his enchanting vocal fireworks display.

Lost on a highway in the Mojave desert, he meets a nearly-halved, wise old armadillo, Roadkill (Alfred Molina) who leads him to his quest for himself. Near the Wild Westerly frontier town of Grit, Rango encounters a bug-eyed iguana, zanily-abrupt Beans (fine vocal work from Isla Fisher, Scottish-Australian comedy actress wife of Sacha Baron Cohen). The town's humanoid desert creatures and their water supply are manipulated by sly tortoise Mayor John (Ned Beatty) abetted by outlaw gila monster Bad Bill (Ray Winstone) and Rattlesnake Jake, a huge and vicious diamondback (Bill Nighy).

Pretending to be a valiant hero to save his skin, succeeding by accident, Rango is appointed sheriff by the Mayor who's buying up the surrounding land and is thwarted only by Beans. The Spirit of the West, a shadowy human, appears to Rango in the desert in the shape of a Clint Eastwood look- and sound-alike Man with No Name (Timothy Olyphant). Haggard thirsty walking cacti join the anti-hero's search for water (evoking Tolkien Ents), and well-characterised odd-shaped, scaly-skinned, warty extras enrich the intricate sets and brain-tickling verbose screenplay, including a cheerfully morbid quartet of Mexican owl guitarists acting as a recurring chorus of woe.

They all populate a movie that's unusually entertaining for eyes and ears. For a movie buff's memory cells too, especially when the animation team (George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, making their first animated feature) create scenes of aerial thrills a la Star Wars.

German-born Hans (Lion King, Gladiator) Zimmer adds aptly spectacular music, and major kudos is earned by first-billed writer and story creator John Logan, a playwright (RED) with an impressive screenwriting portfolio (including Any Given Sunday and RKO 281 in 1999, Gladiator, the Last Samurai, The Aviator, Coriolanus). Verbinski (who also voices four minor characters) is the second credited writer; the third is James Ward Byrkit, the key storyboard artist and credited creative consultant for Verbinski's three Pirates movies.

Verbinski and his team, including British producer Graham (Aviator, Tourist) King and the director's ever-present Australian editor, Craig Wood, could triumph in animation industry awards, and win the Oscar and Golden Globe races this year. Luckily for them, Pixar released its first ho-hum critically-assaulted feature (Cars 2).

A friend said he hadn't left a cinema in such an ebullient mood for a very long time, and that was my feeling: Rango is a top-rated movie experience worth seeing at least once more to catch and admire more of its references and in-jokes.