I had high hopes for this film. I was hoping for an imaginative and family-friendly film for kids and all ages. It is imaginative as far as the characters are concerned but the plot certainly isn’t. Regrettably, it falls short on the family-friendly side of things. The movie is surprisingly violent, and in some ways it seemed to me to be a real “adult” western film with violence and language, just with animated characters instead of live actors. There are a lot of shoot-’em-up scenes, a character who hits others with a stick on several occasions; a large snake with vicious fangs which shows them off several times in close-up scenes. The fangs drip with venom. Characters spit in various scenes. In addition, a hawk swoops down and carries away one character after threatening Rango for a long while. One young boy who sat in front of me became clearly frightened at this scene. And a couple of characters smoke in the movie as well, one smokes a cigar and a saloon girl smokes a cigarette held by a cigarette holder.

I was also a bit surprised at the number of times the “H” word was used and, unfortunately, in one scene a character tells another one to “Go to H”. We don’t award our Dove Seal to films which contain this curse or damning of another character if you will, and that placed the final nail in the coffin of any chance of us awarding our Dove “Family-Approved” Seal to the movie. The movie contains several intense and frightening images and we strongly urge parents to consult the content chart below. The premise involves Rango helping the town of “Dirt” to find water which is, unknowingly to them, shut off by a shady character in the movie. It’s sad when the best thing I can say about the movie is that a few of the facial expressions of the characters were funny. But this one needed to go back to the drawing board before it was made. We cannot define this film as “wholesome entertainment”.