Rango Review

Last week Jake rented Rango. The kids have been wanting to watch it for a while so we finally got it for them. I sat down and watched it with them and, I'll tell you, after it was over I kind of regretted letting them watch it. It's supposed to be a kid movie but I felt like it was seriously lacking in that department. It was fine for an adult movie. It was funny. It was an entertaining story, even if it was a little weird, but for kids, I thought it sucked. Here's why:

• 1. It was depressing. Kid movies are supposed to be light and fun not depressing and gloomy. Rango was depressing and gloomy. In my opinion, kid movies should be full of positives. The characters should be happy, the themes should be good, the morals of the story should be something beneficial. I just didn't see any of this in Rango. To be fair, I wasn't looking for a moral so there may have been one that I just didn't click on to, but overall I thought it was too negative to be a good kid show.
• 2. The villains were nightmarish. When you watch any show you know it wouldn't be good without a really good villain. But in a kid show the villains need to be portrayed differently. Less dark, I guess. Take Mother Gothel in Tangled. She was a villain. She was selfish and willing to do whatever it took to keep herself alive, even if that meant killing somebody else. But though they showed all that, they did it in a way that wasn't going to frighten any poor child or scar them for life. They weren't quite as delicate with the villains in Rango, particularly Rattlesnake Jake. He was ruthless. At one point he tries to force the female lead into doing what he wants. When she won't do it he coils himself around her, dangling her body in front of him, and cries "Look into my eyes. I wanna watch you die!" Umm, what? That's a bit much for a kid show, don't you think? He also says "I'm going to blow so many holes in you your guts will be leaking lead!" and "Do what he says, or by all the fires of the black hole I'll squeeze them pretty brown eyes right out of your head!" Maybe it's just me, but I find that a little disturbing, especially when my five-year-old is watching it!
• 3. The swearing. I've heard some swearing in kid shows and I don't like it. Granted, I swear... a lot. Much more than I should. Still, I don't like to hear it in my kid's movies. It is in this one. It's not a ton. But it was enough that I took notice. I don't mind one swear word, maybe two, depending on the word and how it's presented (as in, did the character say it so low I could barely hear it). But in this movie, it was blatant. I noticed repeated swearing. The worst time, however, Rattlesnake Jake screams it at the female character "Sign the damn papers!" Blatant. Obvious. There's no questioning what he said. I just didn't like it. I don't want my kids hearing that influence from their movies.
• 4. Sacreligious. Okay, this next point is debatable. I'm not even sure how I feel about the whole thing, but it bothered me so I'm putting it in this post. The characters in the movie pray to the Spirit of the West. They hold hands and say a prayer which sounds a lot like something I'd say in my daily prayers, asking for protection and guidance or whatever, but they offer it up to the Spirit of the West. Something about it just rubbed me wrong. I guess you could use it as a lesson to teach your kids about what you believe, but without that lesson it seems like it might influence them negatively. But that's just me. Like I said, this one is debatable because everybody has a different opinion. I'd love to hear some of those opinions.
• 5. The last thing that bothered me was that there wasn't a lot of compassion in the characters. It was a lot of looking out for number one while forgetting numbers two, three, four, five, etc. There wasn't a complete lack of compassion; it was there. But there just wasn't a lot. I like my kids' movies to show characters with compassion, hope, charity, love, and all those wonderful positive emotions that make life better.

So, there is my opinion on Rango. I'd love to hear some of your opinions, especially those that see my points in a different way or those that found more positives in the movie. I'm not opposed to seeing the movie differently. For those of you with kids, at least you know a bit about the characters before you watch it with your kids. I would have liked to have known, then I would have skipped through a few parts. Anyway, there you have it. That's my opinion of the movie Rango.