Review of Ratchet & Clank (2016) by Dejablue — 13 Jul 2017

An 'animated' video game movie. You would think that issues with adaption would be far less of a problem. You would be wrong. This movie is terrible. And it had no right to be.

For starters, this is meant to be an adaption of how Ratchet and Clank meet and their adventures in the first game. The story of the first game is quirky and full of colorful characters but a bit unconventional. Despite this, Ratchet's motivations are clear and strong enough to carry the story. He's just a furry Luke Skywalker. He's also a bit of a jerk. This awful movie decided it'd be better if Ratchet's motivation are "I WANNA BE A SPACE RANGER!" With so much childish zeal he would make Ash Ketchum flinch. Also, to make Ratchet more marketable to all the little babies, they change him from a rude, greedy, space redneck into a cute and loveable teddy bear with wide sparkling naive eyes.

Clank is...well he is Clank. The problem is this movie just ignores him almost completely. He's stuck in an office for almost 2/3rds of the movie and its kind of insulting when he makes up half of the title. Hardly any banter between him and Ratchet. So now there is no need for a character arc. Ratchet is already a care bear sooo...we have Qwark? This is like Qwark fanfiction than a proper RnC movie.

The supporting cast is pointless. They are generic. I only kinda cared about them because...they were the good guys. But I forgot all of their names as soon as I heard them, and even now as I write this review, I can't be bothered to check. Out of all of them, the nerd alien woman was probably the most useful. Still don't remember her name.

I hated the soundtrack, its as generic as humanly possible. Games have much better music that fits the world these characters live in. What on earth happened? Most of the jokes fell flat, I got a few dry chuckles but for the most part all I could do was cringe at the cliches. This movie is so cliche I thought I had gained clairvoyance. I was able to predict things before they even happened. Why even bother with celebrity voice actors in a movie like this? Nobody who went to see it did for Sylvester Stallone or John Goodman or anyone else. We wanted to see these awesome characters we grew up with do awesome **** on the big screen! I mean seriously was "be in a kid movie" on Stallone's bucket list or something?? And honestly, the way the RnC reboot tries to smash cut this movie into the actual game plot is bizarre, and kind of insulting. I had no idea people still did the ancient practice of sticking movie clips for their movie tie n games to get out of making proper cutscenes. It's insulting here because the first game had cut scenes. Better cutscenes. And the plot of the movie is I'd say 90 percent different than the original game's plot. So it doesn't make any sense, and ruins the whole bouquet. The only positive I can dredge from this terrible waste of opportunity is, well, Ratchet is adorable. I don't like how they castrated his personality, but damn, the animators made him cute as a button. I think it would have been great had he retained his game personality. You know how everybody loves that Rocket Raccoon guy? Well this movie could have had that same boon. A cute and cuddly critter with a mean attitude. Kids love that kind of crap. The lack of self awareness from this movie studio (and Insomniac) is staggering.