Does anyone remember the time when a Johnny Depp movie was guaranteed to be unsuccessful? Only a decade ago, he was seen as the quirky and oddball actor who would pop up in what seemed like every other Tim Burton movie, and indie movies from people like Terry Gilliam. All that changed when he donned pirate gear and created an iconic movie character, even though he still pops up in what now seems like *every* Tim Burton movie.
Depp, for all his quirkiness, does like to stick with a few directors, including Burton, Gilliam, and Gore Verbinski. For Gilliam, he did Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and stepped in - along with a few other top-name actors - for the late Heath Ledger in the upcoming Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. For Verbinski, Depp’s finally losing his Jack Sparrow accent and starring as the title character in the animated family film Rango, about a household pet who discovers what he truly is while on a mysterious adventure.
Depp is also reuniting here with John Logan, the screenwriter who adapted Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street from stage to screen last year. Adding Johnny Depp, Gore Verbinski, and John Logan to any movie is enough for most film geeks’ mouths to water, but with this being an animated flick with major help from Industrial Light & Magic, have we all just drowned in our own saliva? Disgusting, yes, but this mixture should lend itself to a potentially awesome movie.
The awesomeness is compounded when you think about what kind of pet Depp will play. If I had my pick, I’d choose a lemur, who Depp is probably best suited to voice, but what wild adventures could a lemur get into? If I had to make Depp voice a dog, he’d be a quirky dog, but a dog nonetheless. Really, though, with a name like Rango and a voice like Depp’s, my dream would be about Rango, the quirky lemur from down the street.
Lemur dreams aside, should we expect anything less quirky than that from Depp and the rest of these folks? One can only hope this movie will be as entertaining as the Pirates of the Caribbean series and perhaps half as long as Pirates 3. (Josh Spiegel/BOP)
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