Review of Ratchet & Clank (2016) by Clint W — 28 Apr 2016

This movie has mixed feelings with me. As a video game to film adaption, it turned out fine, but as a movie on it's own, it doesn't stand out much. I'm a big fan of the games, but the movie felt too toned down, compared to the games. There wasn't as good of a connection between the title characters, the jokes were bad and terribly unfunny, with a few exceptions. and the music was pretty dull at times.

What I did like about the movie, was the animation, the voice acting, the nods to the video games, and even other Sony franchises. I liked how they got the voice actors from the video games to reprise their roles, along with the celebrities, like John Goodman, Paul Giamatti, and Sylvester Stallone. I also loved the chilling cliff hanger at the end, I'm glad they kept that moment serious.

The movie did have good action scenes, but there wasn't much character development, the parts that tried being emotional came off as dull, and it's like the writers weren't even trying, and the movie was lacking it's well known subliminal humor, and heavy use of weapons from the video games, which made the film feel a little shallow at times.

One reason the film may not have been as exciting, was because it was an adaption of the first game in the series, which had one of the weakest plots in the series. If they make a sequel, I hope they try adapting one of the more serious stories, like A Crack In Time. With a little more conflict, action, dark moments, twists, and humor, a sequel to the film could be great.

The bottom line is that it's a faithful film adaption that has plenty of fun nods to the video games, while staying loyal to it's story, and characters, but the toned down violence, and dumbed down humor really took a toll on how great this movie could have been. I really hope to see a sequel that fixes these issues, especially if they choose to base it off the PS3 games, especially A Crack In Time, that one had the best story in my opinion. I hope The Sly Cooper Movie turns out a lot better.