Post by Dracula on Jan 11, 2022 0:57:42 GMT -5
Ron’s Gone Wrong(12/19/2021)
I didn’t know much about Ron’s Gone Wrong except that it was a moderately popular animated film from the 20th Century Fox Animation studio (an entity that can’t possibly survive much longer after the Disney Merger) but it’s gone to Disney+ (and several other streaming services through some elaborate deal that was made with HBO) and I thought I’d give it a look just to have a wider grasp of the year’s animated offerings. I wasn’t expecting much but I was given some reason for optimism early on as I do think there are some smart ideas here. The film is set in a near future where every kid has a “B-Bot” which is kind of like a rolling blend between an iPhone and an Alexa who social networks for the kids while also having an A.I. personality that will sort of play with them. The one kid in school who doesn’t have one of these is our protagonist, Barney, because his guardians (a widowed father and a weird Eastern European grandmother) are too cheap to buy him one. Barney is an awkward young lad with no real friends at his middle school and the film does a decent job of depicting how being in that position at that age can be this really paralyzing situation that kind of snowballs in on itself and how bad adults are and responding to situations like that. The film also does seem to have some interest in kind of exploring the effect that tech gadgets and the internet has on young lives and how tech companies used them to exploit the young. That’s all interesting, but the film does end up delving into all this in some irritatingly conventional ways. The comic relief (particularly that grandmother and her goat) is pretty grating and the film ends with an action climax that just kind of feels unnecessary. This is a movie that tries to be a little different but is kind of dragged back down by the obligations of being a kids movie, and it also kind of lives in the shadow of this year’s The Mitchell’s Vs. The Machines, which maybe has a little less to say about technology but is a lot more exciting and original in its presentation. I want to give this movie a pass for the handful of things it gets right, but it’s a narrow one.
*** out of Five
I didn’t know much about Ron’s Gone Wrong except that it was a moderately popular animated film from the 20th Century Fox Animation studio (an entity that can’t possibly survive much longer after the Disney Merger) but it’s gone to Disney+ (and several other streaming services through some elaborate deal that was made with HBO) and I thought I’d give it a look just to have a wider grasp of the year’s animated offerings. I wasn’t expecting much but I was given some reason for optimism early on as I do think there are some smart ideas here. The film is set in a near future where every kid has a “B-Bot” which is kind of like a rolling blend between an iPhone and an Alexa who social networks for the kids while also having an A.I. personality that will sort of play with them. The one kid in school who doesn’t have one of these is our protagonist, Barney, because his guardians (a widowed father and a weird Eastern European grandmother) are too cheap to buy him one. Barney is an awkward young lad with no real friends at his middle school and the film does a decent job of depicting how being in that position at that age can be this really paralyzing situation that kind of snowballs in on itself and how bad adults are and responding to situations like that. The film also does seem to have some interest in kind of exploring the effect that tech gadgets and the internet has on young lives and how tech companies used them to exploit the young. That’s all interesting, but the film does end up delving into all this in some irritatingly conventional ways. The comic relief (particularly that grandmother and her goat) is pretty grating and the film ends with an action climax that just kind of feels unnecessary. This is a movie that tries to be a little different but is kind of dragged back down by the obligations of being a kids movie, and it also kind of lives in the shadow of this year’s The Mitchell’s Vs. The Machines, which maybe has a little less to say about technology but is a lot more exciting and original in its presentation. I want to give this movie a pass for the handful of things it gets right, but it’s a narrow one.
*** out of Five
