311. Ron's Gone Wrong; movie review

 

 

RON'S GONE WRONG

Cert PG

107 mins

BBFC advice: Contains mild rude humour, threat, bullying

I understand how important the subjects of mental health and bullying are but does almost every children's film have to be littered with messages about them.

I suffered bullying at school and the last thing I would have wanted when I got home were glib subliminal messages of how to resolve it.

At the time, what I needed most was distraction. And children's TV programmes tended to be just that - either prompting laughing-out-loud, entertaining us or having us on the edge of our seats.

Sarah Smith and J. P. Vine's Ron's Gone Wrong has an excellent modern premise but reaches too hard into the deep territory of bereavement, broken friendships and even company profits driven on the backs of children.

It also has a very deep dig into the dangers of social media.

Of course, all of the above is wrapped up in the guise of fun and via a funky robot called Ron (voiced by Zach Galifianakis.

He is a belated birthday gift to 12-year-old Barney (Jack Dylan Grazer) who struggles to make friends at school.

One of the reasons is his quirky upbringing with a father (Ed Helms) who sells novelty gifts and a grandmother (Olivia Colman) who cooks lots and lacks a tact button.

Anyway, as loving as they are, they don't really understand Barney's need to conform with a whole school cohort who have personalised robots who act as their best friends.

Finally, his dad twigs how important this must be to Barney so tries to buy one but ends up with a damaged bot from the back of a lorry.

However, it turns out that Ron's imperfections cause him to have such a simultaneously loving and infuriating personality.

Ron means well but inadvertently causes chaos while the backdrop is consistently one of social media making everyone's life a misery.

I know social media misuse is a very serious issue but wonder whether using a metaphorical mallet to hammer the point home through an animated movie is really the right thing to do.

Reasons to watch: Fast-paced animation

Reasons to avoid: Too much moral messaging 

Laughs: A couple of chuckles

Jumps: None

Vomit: Yes

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 6/10

Did you know? Every facet of film-making was affected when the movie crew all had to go into lockdown because of Covid-19 safety protocols. Illustrators used remote dial-ins to the CG pipeline, where the film’s directors and producers then reviewed materials via Zoom. Editorial was run online with the help of tools like Clearview and Evercast. 

The final word. Jean-Philippe Vine: "It’s a coming-of-age story in the era of social media, so we wanted it to feel like it had atmosphere and depth and richness. So our design and animation style, it’s definitely heightened, there’s all that comedy rhythm and timing that we love." Vital Thrills

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