Watch: New 'Rango' trailer sells the comedy and the story even more

Rango loves his Mr. Timms, and I'm betting so will audiences when 'Rango' is released in March

Credit: Paramount Pictures

There's a distinct possibility that the first film my younger son Allen sees in the theater will be Gore Verbinski's "Rango."

For one thing, it comes out on his third birthday.  That's convenient.  That wouldn't matter, except he's obsessed with the first trailer for the movie.  And I have to agree with him that it's one of the more arresting, interesting movie trailers I've seen in a while.  Visually, the film is unusual and striking and you almost need to see the trailer a few times just to get a handle on what you're looking at.  But it's the comedy that he's smitten with, and he'll act the trailer out every time.  He walks into my office, gives me a solemn, "Dad, play the lizard and the bird," and then plop himself onto my knee, waiting.

Every single time through, he would pretend to be a cactus when Rango would pretend to be a cactus, and then giggle like he was being tickled.  I love seeing him fall for something, openly adore something like that.  And it makes me love "Rango" right away.

Now there's a second trailer, and I guess I've got a month to wait before I can share it with him (January 15, January 15, I just have to make it to January 15), so for now, I can share it with you.  This is not what we saw at BNAT over the weekend… but much of this trailer was built out of that full eight-minute clip from the film featuring Rango walking into a saloon and bragging about how he once killed seven brothers in the same family with a single bullet.  The performance work in the film is impressive both technically and in terms of how much humanity shines through from these outrageous designs.  Our clip wrapped up at the point the trailer begins, with the hawk being crushed by the water tower.  This new trailer finally offers some context to the more outrageous images in the trailer, as it appears Rango steps up, becomes the sheriff of the small desert town Dirt, and then has to become the thing he's pretending to be, all as he pursues a strange orange plastic fish named Mr. Timms.  We don't see a lot of Timms in this trailer, but he appears to be a cornerstone of the marketing that Paramount has planned for the movie.

Click play below and check out the new trailer for "Rango."

Allen and I will be attending "Rango" on opening day, March 4, 2011.