Official Synopsis
Ratchet is a “lombax” with big dreams of joining the elite fighting team, the Galactic Rangers. Clank is a spunky robot who discovers that the evil alien Chairman Drek has a weapon that can destroy whole planets in a moment’s notice. The two misfits must use their wits to help the Rangers save the day in this thrilling and funny adventure featuring the voices of Paul Giamatti (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), John Goodman (Monsters, Inc.), Bella Thorne (Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day), Rosario Dawson (The Lego Batman Movie), and Sylvester Stallone (Creed). The stellar voice cast is rounded out by the game’s original performers including James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, Jim Ward, and Armin Shimerman, reprising their respective video game roles of Ratchet, Clank, Captain Qwark, and Dr. Nefarious.
Fans have been dying to see this duo on film for a long time. Sony and Universal answered the long awaited call and put together an interesting experience that is a good start, but not quite the huge hit one would expect from a long awaited debut for Ratchet & Clank. Let’s get right to this.
{media load=media,id=4284,width=720,align=center,display=inline}
The first act starts out okay and does a good job of introducing the players in the movie. Our antagonist, Chairman Drek, is introduced first. We get to see his personality, his crew’s functionality and what terribleness his group is up to in order to get our protagonist motivated. After that, we get a nice look at Ratchet, a hopeless dreamer of sorts, and a lonely Lombax, who wants to do more with his life beyond the garage he works in and the dissatisfied customers he tries to keep happy. Trying his best to progress, he goes on a try-out with the Galactic Rangers, who are desperate for help after Chairman Drek is discovered blowing up planets. While a long shot, Ratchet isn’t even given a chance to succeed, thanks to an awful hero named Zed, and the first act ends with a rejected Ratchet stumbling upon a robot named Clank. Ratchet, sensing he really has nowhere to go, ends up repairing Clank and finds out his new robot buddy is a lot more than meets the eye.
From that point on, the story gets moving.
The first act, while humorous in some respects, mostly came out of the gates bland. I say this as a fan of kid movies, as I have five kids of my own who love watching Disney/Pixar and various other types of film. I digress, the introduction to Ratchet is a little over-the-top and the Galactic Rangers don’t quite come off as heroic types, though that is later reasoned within acts two and three. Anyway, a positive for the film is that it does a great job with establishing the antagonist, Drek, who is funny as heck when he is onscreen — especially when smacking down his men for being on their phones. I’m not sure if you should credit that more to Paul Giamatti, who usually plays a great spaz in movies, or to the writers (or both), but regardless he is the lone bright spot in the first act.
The second act begins with Ratchet and Clank on the run from Drek and crew. Clank is a wanted robot, one who is deemed defective. The chase soon spirals into the Ratchet and Clank working directly with the Galactic Rangers, whose leader turns out to be less than heroic, as well as a turncoat, and trying to stop Drek before it’s too late. What starts with Drek as being the main bad guy, soon turns into the duo fighting Drek, his crew and Zed. It becomes a mess of epic proportions and the group has do something before they lose everything to Drek.
The second act of the film really consists of stretched out storyline that probably could have been completed in about an hour. That’s not to say that the humorous twists and turns with the Rangers and Drek aren’t good entertainment, but the story just feels like it drags unnecessarily in the second act. I wanted a bit more solid story structure, some solid arc and a bit more development of the characters. Again, it’s not a disaster, but it just feels like the second act stretches the movie because it has no idea what else to do.
As the film starts spiraling into the third act, the characters start to come together a bit. The story does start to focus on the finish and you can tell that it is ready to wrap. A lot of good lessons are learned by the end of the third act, which help to redeem the overall body of work just a bit, especially for kids watching, but it’s tough to make up for a so-so second act. I will stop there because I don’t want to give the entire thing away, but just know that it finishes strongly, but also too late.
Overall, Ratchet & Clank needed a bit more substance to its feature film debut. Some urgency about what is at stake and some more solid character development, especially in the hero and villain department, would have made this a solid experience. As it stands, it will definitely entertain the younger kids in your household, but it just doesn’t hold water in comparison to Pixar, Disney Studios or Dreamworks Animation productions.
On the bright side, you do get a couple of solid features. Here’s what you’re getting:
– A Hero’s Journey
– Leveling Up
They certainly make the overall product a bit more beefy. Anyway, onto the summary.
