Ron’s Gone Wrong

Have you ever come across a movie that you fell in love with against all odds? Throughout the massive line-up of movies a person is going to see in their lifetime, its often those that you’d never expect to enjoy that stand out the most. From the initial concept and eventual trailer, Ron’s Gone Wrong looked like any generic offshoot kids animated movie about a boy befriending a robot (his design even looked like it had a lot of Big Hero 6 envy). Through the lack of advertising, it was a movie that fell under the radar for most, but through small word of mouth, it started to get a lot of good reviews. If there’s any proof of the phrase ‘big things coming in small packages’, it’s this film because Ron’s Gone Wrong isn’t only good, its REALLY good. In the world the film occupies, a large tech-giant company named Bubble, creates the B-bot, a robot companion who can connect with the children they are bought by and allows them to socialize and connect with people through the internet space, along with matching them up with other people who share their interests. While the original creator Marc (voiced by Justice Smith) wanted it to be a tool to bring kids together, his business partner sees the money side of things and wishes to exploit the teenage mind to make it a necessity for popularity rather than anything else.  For a world where every kid has a B-bot, loner middle-school student, Barney (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer) feels even more isolated since he doesn’t own one and therefore no one will be his friend. After seemingly getting a new one for his birthday, he finds that this specific B-bot, who goes by the name of Ron (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) seems to be defective and doesn’t instantly know everything about him and doesn’t do the things most B-bots do. While Ron is different from the other bots, Barney eventually warms up to him and tries to teach him to function as a proper B-bot and unknowingly discovers the pros and cons of the lifestyle of being tied to this B-bot’s algorithm. This becomes clearer when the business partner discovers the defective bot is sullying the brand’s good name and plans to destroy Ron by all means necessary. Against all odds, Ron’s Gone Wrong is a wholesome, funny, beautiful looking heartfelt movie that brings to the table a lot more than originally expected.

The initial set-up for the movie looked like it wasn’t going to be anything that great from the trailers, but upon closer inspection, the movie actually uses its concept to convey a brilliant portrayal of the pros and cons of social media. These B-bots are meant to be friends for the kids, but they instead become glorified devices used to prop up their online status, it commands them who to be with because of shared interests and prevents them from choosing their friends if they don’t, it becomes their best friend automatically, but only praises and commercialize themselves as opposed to help them grow. The relationship between Barney and Ron forms because they actually have to grow a bond between getting to know one another and seeing what real friendship comes and stems from, as opposed to automatically being friended by a bot or thousands of people that they don’t even know. It takes this used-before concept and really does a lot of mature, relatable stuff with it, and despite what looks like a hammering of social media, it isn’t flat-out demonizing it. The original creator wanted it to be tool for getting people together, it just came from an algorithm that can’t get that across as effectively as basic connections. Its this awareness that really helps this movie really step into its own and takes what could be a very generic kids movie and makes it something that’s far more connectable and heart-warming than it could have been. This makes sense considering one of the director’s of this movie is Sarah Smith, who worked on the movie, Arthur Christmas; another underrated gem that had awful advertising, but was a fantastic movie that took a cliched plot and made it interesting and new.  While she had help with co-directors Jean-Philippe Vine and Octavio E. Rodriguez and co-writer Peter Baynham (who also worked on Arthur Christmas), you can feel her unique personality and energy in this film. It avoids a lot of expected tropes; it treats its character as more than one-note cut-outs and its heart and genuine friendships that are developed are what really carries the movie. Unfortunately, the movie does fall into a pretty typical kids movie climax with a lot of slapstick and goofy situations, and it doesn’t match with the rest of the movie’s tone, but it leads to a great conclusion that does come with consequences that wouldn’t normally come in a movie like this, its very refreshing to see.

A lot of the characters look like they could fall into these basic archetypes, but the movie is clever enough to not go so one-note in that department. For a movie that feels like its trying to talk about an issue with kids growing up, it needs to portray these kids as real people and they seem to show off that these kids have really problems that come from overusing this B-bot. They became addicted to what it can give them that it made them ignore aspects of who they once were and instead became obsessed with pandering to people they don’t even know and it shows the dangers of being too much of an internet celebrity and wanting to socialize, but having nothing worth showing, it’s done very well. The relationship between Barney and Ron is very sweet and touching and despite going through some setbacks that could be drawn out and lame, it never last too long. Jack Dylan Grazer has already shown to be a really good child voice actor from roles like Luca, It and Shazam and does really good here as well, the rest of the supporting cast does a likeable job in the bit roles they have, Zach Galifianakis does a surprisingly nice job as Ron; never going to human to not feel robotic and manages to not fall into his usual performance style and creates a really endearing character out of it. Despite the basic design of the B-bots on the outside, they are actually really cool looking and the various things they can shape into and how colorful and distinct they can look really helps them pop out more, especially since Ron’s lack of color and unique aspects really helps him stand out. The other recognizable names like Olivia Colman, Ed Helms and Rob Delaney, they aren’t used to the point where they truly stand-out, with the exception of Justice Smith as the man who created the device who gets just enough to stand out as a character. The movie does have a pretty lame villain which the movie really didn’t need, it feels like he’s the only character that was being treated as a flat-out cartoon character and his unfunny dialogue and uselessness in the plot makes him pretty dull to watch throughout the entire film even though the movie could’ve functioned wonderfully without a straightforward villain.

For a movie that looks like its visual are a little odd, it turns out to be a great-looking film. The backgrounds and colors of the movie all looking very colorful and clean and while the character designs are definitely different, they are also unique and full of personality. This is the first film for the animation company, Locksmith Animation, and it’s a great first step for them. They have a distinct style that separates them from other animation companies, and it could be greatly beneficial to see them in more work later down the line. It finds that nice balance between a traditional Pixar looking 3D animated film, but with a unique enough touch in character design to feel unique. The movie is also pretty funny when it wants to be, and it has this quick, witty almost adult manner of saying these lines that makes it feel Pixar in nature. It’s a very wholesome movie that relies on its characters and its tone to really suck you in and that connection can lead into good comedy, both verbal and visual. Its also the first animated movie to be made under the 20^th Century Studio label as opposed to 20^th Century Fox and this is a pretty fantastic first start in that regard.

One of the best surprises are the ones that exceed your expectations and Ron’s Gone Wrong absolutely did that. For a movie that honestly looked at best perfectly serviceable, at worst lame and boring, the fact that its as good as it is, its truly something of a miracle. It’s a shame that a lot of movie likes this aren’t going to be given notice by people due to its style, kiddish feel and lack of good advertising, but just like Arthur Christmas, it really is worth seeing and it will most likely blow you away. This movie isn’t monumental or has the scale and presence of something like a Pixar film, but for a simple likeable story between a boy and his robot companion learning the true meaning of friendship, it is presented in one of the best ways that story can be told. It has a great execution of a great message,  its connection to the pros and cons of the internet are very well handled, the characters are memorable, the animation is really nice, and it can be pretty funny a lot of the time. Definitely check this one out, be delighted by what it has to offer, and try not to moan when you see how much Disney wants to remind you they own Star Wars.