bradfordfox and I just attended a test screener of RANGO:

And let me be the first to say this is a must see. You have no idea how much of a relief it was to have a CG animated film that's not all clean and perfect and innocent.

Honestly, I'd say it had THE best animation and character design I've seen of ANY CG film to date. Not only that, but it was cool and the characters were realistically grungy and imperfect. So much more believable and atmospherically serious.

The story is a pretty transparent hero's quest - but Gore had fun with it; at times dressing it up in metaphors as dense as Dead Man, while other times the characters straight up say, "So this is where he rides off into the sunset?"

Despite the story's familiarity, it stays remarkably fresh and interesting. Mostly because it's fucking weird. Downright surreal at times. It's also hella witty thanks to the dialog not being dumbed down for kids. The emotional climax was touching and nearly made me tear up. Some pretty striking comparisons to Chinatown can be regularly made, too...

All this only stays true as long as they don't drastically change the cut :P Here's hoping you'll get the same experience!