"No man can walk out of his own story."

The other night, my family gathered around our giant projection screen in the basement to watch a movie that was new to all of us — "Rango." I'd heard good things about it from my boss, who writes movie reviews from time to time for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, so I was looking forward to it. But was I a little skeptical? Admittedly so. Mostly because, well... I love Johnny Depp. Don't get me wrong. Adore him. But I fear he's become a bit over-exposed, and all the love in the world can't make me blind to that sad fact. But a funny thing happened while watching "Rango" — Johnny's vocal chops weren't the selling point. Actually, I surely wouldn't have even known Rango's voice belonged to Johnny if the previews hadn't sold the hell out of that little detail. Johnny's voice being a bit nondescript made me love it all the more — it was just good voice-acting, and I didn't need to know it was The Depp in order to enjoy it.

Beyond the vocals, "Rango" was visually stunning — different from any other CG movie I've seen before. The story itself, being a Western, might make you scratch your head as to why I'd choose such a genre as a Flick Pick here at Stuff&Nonsense, but the message was a lovely one and "visually stunning" would be my words of choice (see also: beautiful, refreshing, and unique). "Rango" was mature, bizarre, and magical in an Old West kind of way (you know, Native American legends about walking cacti and such). There were moments I laughed, moments that took my breath away, and moments that had me almost crying for this reptile who is just trying to find himself and his place in the world. It's a theme we all can relate to, and "Rango" ends up giving us hope — Hope that with a little imagination and a lot of gumption, we'll all ride off into that proverbial sunset, someday.