Review of Ratchet & Clank (2016) by Geoff A — 29 Apr 2016

Just got home from Ratchet & Clank. I am very sorry to report that it is exceedingly bland. I was really hoping they'd knock it out of the park, Ratchet & Clank have so much potential. Alas, the story they chose to tell was so boring and by the numbers, and the characters just weren't engaging on any level. I've seen trailers for Ratchet & Clank games that got me more involved than this movie did.

It's not "bad" per se, it's just very... safe. I remember one genuine laugh at one clever gag, and I can't recall what it was now. I think the really big problem is that we just don't get any character development of any kind from anyone. We don't connect with Ratchet, because he's just presented to us fully formed. We get no real insight into him. We never become invested in him. Ditto clank. Ditto the entire cast.

It's a great looking movie, although at my showing there was a distinct problem with the lip sync, I don't know if that is common to every print, but looking good isn't enough anymore. Looking good is par for the course. The writing is where this movie fails, and unfortunately, that's the most important part. This movie was barely direct-to-video level, and that makes me sad.

I forgot to mention, the movie begins with a shit ton of company logos, like a video game. It was awful. It's bad enough when we have to deal with endless company logo animations at the beginning of a game, now we have to see them on movies too? ffuuuuuuuuuuuu.