Another holiday present arrived on our computer screens this week, as Yahoo!Movies debuted a two-and-a-half-minute trailer for Gore Verbinski’s animated comedy-Western Rango. Rango stars Johnny Depp as a chameleon who (apparently) becomes the sheriff of a tiny southwestern town named for its most distinctive feature, Dirt. The outstanding voice cast also includes Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Ned Beatty, and, as the rattlesnake-villain, Bill Nighy.

CinemaBlend’s Katey Rich attended a Paramount screening of 8 minutes of Rango footage and was dazzled. “Quite honestly, I had no idea what to make of Rango when I went to the preview,” Rich writes. “I was totally stunned. [. . . T]he movie was funny and fast-paced and utterly enjoyable, getting big laughs out of the audience of critics [. . .]. Rango is now high on my list of what’s worth seeing next spring.”

You can see the trailer here:

The Zone thanks DeepinDepp for sharing the trailer and Lu for the CinemaBlend review. You can read more about Rango on the Zone’s News & Views forum.

Gore Verbinski’s Rango debuts in movie theaters on March 4, 2011.