The Other Side of Animation 80: Ratchet & Clank Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

We should probably all admit and accept that video game movies are never going to be good. I don’t care how many times we have to try to make them work, they are never going to get better, and it’s a waste of money. Sure, some films get closer than others, like 2016’s Warcraft, which should have been its own solo film instead of a universe/franchise plotting film that came out seven years too late. What’s another good example? Why, no other than 2016’s Ratchet & Clank. On paper, Ratchet & Clank looks like it has everything to make it a successful video game-based movie. It’s fully animated, so no live-action trainwrecks, it has a majority of the original cast from the games in it, one of the writers of the games was penning the script, and it seemed to have a bit of everything that fans of the franchise would love, and is a film that newcomers could check out and not be confused. So, what happened? Quite a lot happened. Reports came in that the film was already done and shelved for two years before last year’s release, the writer of the games stepped down and disowned the film, due to hints and comments saying two other writers rewrote the script, a lack of marketing and trailers, said trailers not showing off Ratchet & Clank, but the celebrities that were signed on to be in the film, and that was before release. Once it hit the theaters, no one saw it. Out of a $20 mil budget, it only made back $12 mil, it cost the animation studio Rainmaker Entertainment $10 mil in damage, and the head of Rainmaker got angry and ranted that theaters and the Hollywood system set the film up to fail since it was coming out between Zootopia and The Jungle Book. Yeah, there are not a lot of good graces with this movie. So, is it good? Or is it as bad as some people make it out to be? Well, let’s dive in.

The story is a retelling of the first game, as it follows a Lombax named Ratchet, voiced by James Arnold Taylor, who wants to become one of the Galactic Rangers. This group of popular galactic heroes is led by an individual named Captain Qwark, voiced by Jim Ward. Unfortunately, Ratchet doesn’t pass the test to become one, and ends up moping back to his place to look into the stars and be depressed. That is, until an escape pod crashes nearby his location, and he goes to check it out to see if anyone is hurt. He finds a small robot by the name of Clank, voiced by David Kaye. Ratchet learns from his new robotic friend that there is an evil individual named Chairman Drek, voiced by Paul Giamatti, and his evil scientist named Doctor Nefarious, voiced by Armin Shimerman. They are planning to blow up worlds, take parts of said blown up world, and make a new world. Can Ratchet & Clank team up with the Galactic Rangers to save the day? Was there a reason to have Sylvester Stallone, John Goodman, Paul Giamatti, Bella Thorne, and Rosario Dawson to be in this movie? No.

So, what is wrong about this movie? It should work, since it has all the elements that would make for a fun animated film. Sadly, it’s a really boring sit. I know that sounds weird when you have a film with space battles, creative guns, comedy, and quirky characters, and say it’s boring, but, by lord, they found a way to make it all a chore to sit through. Not only are the elements that made the franchise fun not really focused on, but the overall story is painfully generic. I get it’s a retelling of the original story, but they couldn’t find a way to make it less predictable? I mean, probably more so than any Illumination Entertainment’s films can you see what is going to happen with Ratchet & Clank. I think the major issue, besides the film being a bore, is the fact that our two iconic heroes, Ratchet and Clank are barely in the movie. Sure, you do get to see them separated from one another, but you don’t get to see them together a lot. I know the duo weren’t the most interesting in the first game, but they are a likable set of characters that this film does no justice to. Instead, a lot of the time, the film is actually focusing on Captain Qwark, and that’s already a huge red flag, if you know his story arc in the games at all. This film tries to squish in his story arc that actually spanned about five or so games. Here though, you want to know the most offensive element about the overall film? It’s the fact that the film’s scenes are literal cut scenes that the developers used in the PlayStation 4 game that was released at the same time. Why would I go out and watch this movie, when I could play the game and see a huge chunk of the film and the good writing that wasn’t screwed over by the other two writers. It’s easily one of the most baffling business decisions I have ever heard of, in terms of animation and gaming. I also don’t see the reason to hire such big actors for these roles. I mean, yeah, some of them do a decent job, but why bring back the video game actors for the big roles, and then replace the always awesome Kevin Michael Richardson with Paul Giamatti? I like both actors, but there was no reason for Giamatti to be one of the lead villains. I mean, that’s really the biggest annoyance with this movie’s A-list cast. A lot of them are decent and fine, but there was no reason for them to be there besides to have big names to sell to the public.

The animation is also a mixed bag. While the designs look like the characters from the games, the movements are clunky, and some of the designs don’t feel as part of the games’ universe as they should. I get Sony didn’t think they needed to spend a lot of money on this project, but you can’t be making good animated films at the $20 mil price range. Or, at the very least, make a $20 mil animated film good with that price range, since I know most European-animated films can and do make good work with lesser budgets. It’s becoming more obvious when a film doesn’t have at the very least a $75+ mil budget, in terms of animation, due to how people are so trained to catch when the animation isn’t up-to-par. It’s hard to explain unless you see it in person, and then watch something like Moana or Zootopia back-to-back with Ratchet & Clank. Some of the designs are not a surprise to see, since they fit the franchise’s universe, but then there were a few times where I felt like the characters were from a totally separate cartoon or series. I guess at the very least, it’s not as bad as The Wild Life and Norm of the North. It’s on par with Rock Dog’s animation, which also needed a bit more cash to polish it all off.

Oh, and once again, I have to disagree with people defending this movie and saying how it was “made for fans”. Well, you know what? Your fan service doesn’t make it a good movie. Sure, you can feel nostalgic for a film that is based on something from your childhood, but a PlayStation One boot-up sound, or a quick reference to Sly the Raccoon isn’t going to save this movie. They should have made the movie good first, and then put in the fan service. Saying the movie is good because it has nostalgic value and fan service just doesn’t sit well with me, because it means that you are willing to ignore everything, because it has elements you recognize from the games/anime/TV series/whatever. Plus, if this film was made for fans, then why did none of the fans go see it? Oh wait, that’s because a huge majority of the cut scenes from the game were actually from the movie! So yeah, why go see the movie when you can play the game, and get a much better experience doing so.

So, what do I like about this movie? Well, I do admire that they decided to keep this film in an animated form, since making it a live action film would have been horrible and horrifying. While the humor was mostly miss, at the very least, the humor wasn’t super painful or annoying. Plus, there were a few lines that were pretty funny. I also enjoyed the voice work of the actors who were brought in from the video games. Jim Ward, James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, and Armin Shimerman all do a fantastic job working off one another. Some of the big league celebrities they got were alright, and were cynically pushed into the movie, but I’ll at the least give credit to Paul Giamatti, Rosario Dawson, and John Goodman who put in some entertaining voice work.

While not worse than Norm of the North, Ratchet & Clank is a bomb and a failure as another video game movie that couldn’t be amazing. It should have been free with the game, or free for PlayStation Plus users. It’s available on Netflix as of writing this review, and if you are for some reason wanting to buy it, by all means you should do so. I don’t think you should, since you should purchase Moana or Sing instead, but you do you. I simply know that I will never want to watch this movie ever again, and will just enjoy the video games. Well, that was underwhelming, but at the very least, it wasn’t Delgo. We will sooner or later get to that disaster. For now, let’s try and get excited for next week’s review, as we take a look at the very first Vampire Hunter D film. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time!

Rating: Lackluster

The Other Side of Animation 77: The LEGO Batman Movie Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Like I mentioned in my Storks review, The LEGO Movie was a huge worldwide success. It made a lot of money, it was clever, funny, heart-warming, and paved the way for Warner Animation Group to take a stab at the animation market. When it became official that there were going to be more movies based on the colored blocks, it was no surprise, but a tiny bit of hesitation. Could Warner Brothers strike gold twice with more LEGO movies? The true test is definitely in 2017 with the future release of The LEGO Ninjago Movie, and the recent release of The LEGO Batman Movie. Usually when spin-offs are announced to big money-making movies that follow side characters, you worry that the film is going to be a cynical cash grab. Luckily, with the directing of Chris McKay, a story done by Seth Grahame-Smith, and a script written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern, and John Wittington, this spin-off/next entry of the LEGO universe, The LEGO Batman Movie, was spot on. Why? Let’s build the review brick by brick, and find out.

Will Arnett returns as the biggest, richest, and most egocentric billionaire man baby, Batman. After stopping yet another heist by the Joker, voiced by Zach Galifianakis, Batman learns that the new police commissioner Barbra Gordon, voiced by Rosario Dawson, wants to hold Batman accountable for his actions, and be able to have the police and Batman work together. After some shenanigans that include all of the villains going to Arkham, Batman unintentionally adopts a young boy named Dick Grayson voiced by Michael Cera. Batman had better learn the meaning of friendship and family, because the Joker might have a sneaky plan.

So, what makes this movie fantastic, and have such a high grade on Rotten Tomatoes? Well first off, as a LEGO spin-off film, it holds up on its own. Let’s face it. The LEGO Movie was a lightning-in-a-bottle kind of situation, very much like the original Toy Story, Ghostbusters, and Beauty and the Beast. Future films will probably never be that good again, and that should be okay if the end product is still fantastic. Now that we got that out of the way, this is just a good LEGO movie, a good Batman movie, and a good Batman parody movie. Instead of taking from one part of Batman’s history, they take in the entire 80 years or so of history of the character, and shove it into a movie that almost reaches two hours. It shows off the best, the light, the dark, the worst, the funniest, and the weirdest parts of the character and the universe in which Batman lives. I know some people would argue that Batman: The Return of the Caped Crusaders is a better comedic Batman, but I really disagree. While I love Caped Crusaders, I felt like it limited itself by understandably only reaching for material from the Adam West Batman era. It also ran out of steam in the third act that hurt the overall experience. You don’t get that here. The LEGO Batman Movie is a giant love letter to everything amazing and goofy about Batman. It’s quite shocking to see a good spoof and parody film, since for the longest time, the trend of making good and creative spoof films died in the 90s when all the bad parody films were coming out. Why does this one do parody well? It’s because the people that worked on this film knew what they were doing, and love the property. If you are going to make a parody of something, like the Hot Shot and Airplane films, you have to know what you are making fun of, and love it for that reason. If this was made by the hacks behind current spoof movies today (who really should be blacklisted and fired from Hollywood), The LEGO Batman Movie would be nothing but stupid references, that only acknowledge their existence and nothing more. Luckily, the director knew what he was doing, and made sure to give the film a good story, because the team knew they couldn’t just fly by with just Batman-centric jokes. While Batman is definitely an over-the-top comedic version of himself, they do give him a story arc and personality and drive. The same goes for everyone else. Dick Grayson could have easily been the worst aspect of the film, but due to great writing and a fantastic performance by Michael Cera, Dick becomes one of the highlights of the movie. I also adore all the cameos and references, like how Two-Face is played by Billy Dee Williams, who played Two-Face’s alter ego Harvey Dent in the 1989 Batman movie. Even though I could get a lot of the jokes since I have seen Batman over the years, I feel like casual viewers can easily enjoy this movie. It’s not just made for the fans. Just like The LEGO Movie, I liked that the film does make fun of both incarnations of Batman, but doesn’t pick a side. Let’s be honest, Batman can work both in dark storylines and goofy storylines, and somewhere in the middle, too. Even the more serious Batman storylines have really stupid stuff about them, because when dark Batman is done wrong, it’s really bad and can be even more unintentionally goofy. This is a movie that knew what it wanted to do, and executed it almost perfectly, unlike a lot of DC’s live-action film offerings.

The animation is once again fantastic. It’s well made CGI that gets all those little details of LEGO blocks down perfectly, and while it does suffer from being too hectic at times on screen, due to everything being made of LEGO blocks, the fact that they cleverly limited the movements of everything to make it look stop-motion is still very impressive. All the characters look great, and the little details and side gags are clever and hilarious. I was at a screening with only a few people, and we all laughed hard. It was almost like an Edgar Wright film where you watch it and get a lot of the jokes, but then watch it a second time and can find more little jokes and details that may have been missed by you during the first viewing. The fight sequences are also creative, since if you can’t take advantage of the limitless possibilities of LEGO and the fact it’s animated, then you have failed as a director. The voice cast is perfect. While I know I support the idea of getting non-Hollywood celebrity actors for more theatrical film roles, when the casting is done right, it’s a wonderful thing. I don’t think I could have picked a better cast with Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Billy Dee Williams, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Adam DeVine, Zach Galifianakis, Ralph Fiennes, Jenny Slate, Eddie Izzard, Seth Green, Jermaine Clement, Ellie Kemper, and you get the idea. It’s a fantastic cast full of actors with big and small roles that just make the overall film fun. I adore the chemistry between Batman and the Joker in a pseudo-romance plot that can only be done with a relationship between Batman and the Joker that isn’t creepy 18+ fanfiction. While Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger are always going to be the best Jokers, animated and live-action, Zach is easily my third favorite Joker. He just brings such a great energy to him.

If I had to complain about something about this movie, the first 15 or so minutes can be very fast, and then it changes pace abruptly. It’s not distracting, but it’s noticeable, and I can understand if someone found it to be too much at one time. Other than that, the criticisms I have are mostly nitpicks, like some of the jokes don’t land, and sometimes the Batman villains don’t really have enough to them in terms of personality. Still, these weren’t enough to ruin the experience for me.

While this might not reach the high tier level of The LEGO Movie, The LEGO Batman Movie is easily the best animated movie of 2017 so far. It’s a love letter, a hilarious spoof of Batman, a great Batman movie in and of itself, and a wonderful entry into the LEGO animated universe. It makes me think that Warner Animation Group is going to become the new DreamWorks, which I will tackle in an article in the future. Now then, go see The LEGO Batman Movie. It might already be beating 50 Shades Darker, because it’s a film that everyone should check out. I’m in the mood for more DC, so how about we talk about Justice League Dark? Thanks for reading, and I will see you all next time.

Rating: Go see it!