Rango (2011)

This movie should probably win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The attention to detail in the animation is outstanding. Compare the reptiles in this to the insects in A Bug's Life and you can see a vast difference in the detail. And yes, I know technology has gotten better since 1998.

When a pet chameleon who calls himself Rango (Johnny Depp) becomes accidentally stranded in the Mojave Desert, he has to use his "acting" skills to make sure he stays alive. After narrowly avoiding a hawk, he comes in contact with Beans (Isla Fisher). She takes Rango to her town of Dirt, which is an Old West community populated by desert animals. When the hawk returns and, by luck, Rango kills it, he is appointed sheriff by the mayor. The currency in the town is water, and the reserves are dangerously low. Beans convinces Rango to investigate the water shortage because she is skeptical of the mayor. After much investigation, Rango realizes the water shortage isn't really a problem, it's just been diverted away from the town. As he tries to figure out who could possibly want to keep water away from those who need it, Rattlesnake Jake returns to run amok and expose Rango for the fraud he is. So much for just trying to survive accidental abandonment.

As I said before, the attention to detail is the first thing you'll notice about this movie. Especially if you watch it on Blu-ray. Beyond that, this is a great western with a great western storyline. Newcomer comes to town, kills the enemy, becomes sheriff and must stop a greater evil. Countless westerns have started this way with worse results. The voice work was great. From Depp to Fisher to Ray Winstone to Abigail Breslin. The only problem I had with this movie was the fact that it's nearly two hours long. That's about 30 minutes more than an animated flick should be. Still great though. Grade: A-

Alice In Wonderland (2010)

I was told you love this or hate it and yet I'm caught right down the middle. I really liked some parts of this, while others I didn't. Tim Burton just seemed a shade off his game on this one.

At age 20, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is set to be engaged to her beau. Problem being, she doesn't want that. It's at that point when she notices an oddly familiar rabbit in a waistcoat. She follows him to a tree and, you guessed it, down a rabbit hole. While down in Wonderland (it's actually Underland, apparently I've misunderstood), she does not believe the sight of it. A talking dormouse, flowers with faces on them and the Bandersnatch that almost kills her...it's all too much to be real. When she meets the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), it's definitely got to be a dream. As her journey progresses, things start to seem familiar to her...as if she'd visited this place before but that couldn't be possible. Once she meets the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), that's when it starts getting real.

I was very intrigued by the idea of Alice returning to Wonderland and this not being and exact copy of the 1950s animated movie. I mean it has the Cheshire Cat and the Tweedles, but there are many differences. The thing that threw me out of it was that it was clearly made with 3-D in mind. Tim Burton's got the talent to make a movie and have 3-D follow him, not the other way around. At least Avatar gave you the feeling of a movie first. The other thing, this is NOT appropriate for young kids. How it got to be PG, I have no idea. Still, I do recommend it, but my mind may change on later viewings.

Public Enemies (2009)

Michael Mann has a way with the crime drama. Be it Heat or Collateral, his experience in this field does not go unnoticed. This is a fun gangster movie and the time just flew by while watching.

The movie begins towards the end of John Dillenger's (Johnny Depp) bank robbing career. He's still the best, but the banks are running out of money in the midst of the Great Depression. At this time, the Bureau of Investigation has put together a task force, led by Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), to confront and stop public enemy #1, Dillenger. John's criminal team is beginning to erode around him and with the FBI constantly closing in on him and his goons, Dillenger, more so than he's been before, is on the run. The public respected and considered him a folk legend, but the law is out to get him.

This movie was great and it allowed you to see all the hype surrounding Dillenger. That may have been the most fun about it, how the public fed off of his antics and revered him. The performances were outstanding all around. Underrated were the ones of Stephen Graham as Baby Face Nelson, and Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover. The one problem with the movie is that they expected the audience to know a little too much about these people before they saw the movie. That's fine for Dillenger, but no one remembers Melvin Purvis. In the end though, it was a exciting gangster film.