"You are a very lonely lizard."

My current favorite thing. Well, one of.

Ahem. Rango.

If lizards have psychological delusions and insatiable needs to gather praise and acclaim from all those around them (and are willing to lie extensively to obtain it), than this is their saga. And evidently, no one is better at expressing a chameleon's inner insecurities than the respected aging heartthrob, Johnny Depp.

Set up as a satire on the Western cowboy epic, the tale begins as the meek reptile is ejected from his lonesome aquarium home and plunged into unfamiliar desert territory by a roadside. After finding the small rustic town of Dirt, inhabited by other small animals, he leaves behind his life as a pet, where he had expressed himself through an "acting troupe" with  the inanimate objects in his tank: a plastic palm tree, a dead bug, the torso of a Barbie doll, and a wind-up goldfish. Seeing his new location as an opportunity for a new identity, he spins a heroic story of his great gunslinger-style accomplishments and identifies himself as "Rango."

This new identity, naturally, causes a stir in the town and kicks the plot into high gear. Rango is presented with more than he had planned to be faced with: He is made the town's sheriff, and expected to cure the severe drought the town has endured for some time. He scrambles to keep in character while at the same time developing sympathy and friendship for the members of the Dirt community (and forming a kinship with the spitfire female ranch-owning lizard, Beans (Isla Fisher)). 

This is a common theme in movies, I guess. The whole "be yourself" theme. Though I think the message has shifted over the decades, and by this point it's probably something like "be yourself, but nothing cool or interesting will happen to you." Apparently, the only way to truly connect with your inner soul is to concoct a huge clusterfuck of a lie that nearly results in a mass-killing, and then use your ability to "be yourself" to cleverly overcome any death threats and return everything to normal. You could have just been yourself from the git-go and avoided angering those aliens or rhinos or Huns with your fake d-bag persona.

But we, the American public, learn best by seeing intricate demonstrations of what NOT to do. The lizard does not fail us here.

Plus, this is a hilarious movie. Just...completely. The owl mariachi band alone is worth it.