Director: Kevin Munroe Starring: Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Bella Thorne, Rosario Dawson, James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, Sylvester Stallone Studio: Sony Pictures Genre(s): Comedy Rated: PG (For action and some rude humor) |
“Ratchet & Clank” is based off a popular PlayStation
game of the same name. I bring up this
blanket fact because while watching the movie I remember having memories of my
parents, grandparents, and various aunts and uncles telling me how pointless
video games were and how much of a waste of time it was to play them. Oh, if only they could see “Ratchet &
Clank” the movie and compare it to the game.
This is one of the few examples that actually makes a good defense for
an entirely different medium. The game
this is based from encourages kids to solve puzzles, explore lots of buildings
with weird gadgets, and try to outwit the various robot enemies on screen. If you watch any kid playing this game, you
will see more thought put into the execution of Ratchet & Clank than you
will in this movie.
The movie follows that tired cliché of our main hero Ratchet
dreaming of “doing something big” and “being a hero” stereotypes (which both
seem to be different sides of the same coin, so I don’t understand why both
need to be said in the same film). He
gets his chance to be that hero when an evil CEO villain alien starts blowing
up planets and harvesting the best pieces to make a new private planet out
of. Because of these cosmic turn of
events, the space government decides they can expand their hero force from four
members to five, which gives Ratchet a chance to become the hero he always
wanted to be. You now…it just occurred
to me that there seems to have been a wasted opportunity for this to be a
clever satire of corrupt businesses and lazy governments. There is no attempt at making any jokes out
of these completely ridiculous scenarios.
As far as I can tell there isn’t even a screenplay at play
here (ho ho). Just a bunch of uninspired
characters with clichéd motivations going through the basic motions of a kid’s
films. Did the studio behind this really
think they were going to lure people away from “The Jungle Book” to see this? I mean, seriously, when you compare the two
in terms of story and imagination, did they really thing THIS was going to pose
a big threat! *sigh* Sorry guys, I must
admit, I’m sort of at a loss for words.
“Ratchet & Clank” is bad in such a rudimentary, conventional way
that critics might be forced to pull out their own book of clichés in reviewing
it. Instead, I’m going to point out that
the fun of the games WAS the exploration, the interactivity, and puzzles! You can’t successfully translate these things
to a movie with good results. All the
audience sees is a lot of wasted energy.
The one thing is you COULD translate successfully into the
movie (in theory) was the chemistry and witty banter between Ratchet &
Clank themselves! Amazingly, the
characters spend a majority of the time not only fighting with each other, but
not even sharing the screen at the same time.
In fact, let’s touch upon Clank for a moment, because despite sharing
the title of the film, he does very little and is only in the movie thanks to
circumstances that don’t really make much sense when you give them half a
seconds thought. If the movie was hinging
on these two characters being interesting together then it failed in a very
major (and surprisingly basic) way. I
assume the thought process behind making this movie was to launch a whole PlayStation
film universe. If this is indeed the
plan, future directors might want to remember the audience can’t play these
movies, and focusing on the non-interactive elements that work may help them
avoid having another “Ratchet & Clank” on their hands.
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is some mild science fiction violence, but none of it is terrifying or scary. Recommended for ages 5 and up.
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