Rango

Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Voices of Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Timothy Olyphant
Time Out rating:

A chameleon with no name (Johnny Depp) comes from out of the West ('the far West,' he stresses) to the water-starved town of Dirt. True to his nature, he just wants to blend in. But the reptile eventually adopts the titular moniker and becomes the burg’s unlikely, comically inept savior. Several quick-witted touches – such as a hilarious nod to Depp’s role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – can’t make up for Gore Verbinski’s leaden direction of this digitally animated feature. Once the initial cleverness wears off, the film becomes an endless slog, with headache-inducing set pieces (an aerial attack by prairie dogs – don’t ask – lamely cribs from Apocalypse Now) and aggressively plot-heavy exposition that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Rango opens nationwide on October 22