Redux Month - Ratchet and Clank (movie)

Before we get to this film, a couple of quickfire revisions

I've said before I was probably too harsh on the live action Japanese Death Note films, at least they're not the Netflix film

My Harry Potter mini reviews: 5 and 6 in particular were short and lacking in detail, I would have done at least one of those for this month but then JK Rowling became controversial

Dude Where’s my Car: who you love is irrelevant and 2 transgender people can fall in love same as anyone else. My joke was inappropriate and I will have edited that review by the time this goes out. (If only to say transgender as opposed to transsexual – what the heck was I thinking?)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie – I rewatched it again recently and it’s terrible

Captain Sabretooth and the Treasure of the Lama Rama – apparently the white makeup is supposed to be some kind of status symbol (although at least one of the villains calls him pasty-faced) I should’ve looked into it more before writing that review, still not a good film though

I’m sure there are more problems and mistakes I should go over and maybe I’ll do another of these if I’m still doing this in 5 years’ time, but before now let’s look at Ratchet and Clank again.

Ratchet and Clank had a very encouraging teaser in its early development, maybe a little too early all things considered as it was an age before another trailer released, then the game news and that’s basically all there was until the film’s release. You have to wonder whether there was much confidence in the film taking it off, and it really didn’t.

Rainmaker were the animators for this project, which immediately raised alarm bells with me. Sony owns the Ratchet and Clank rights, and an animation studio that could’ve done the work. But they outsourced it to Rainmaker instead, implying little confidence in it from the start, then there’s the fact that Sony wouldn’t even distribute the movie under their own brand. It was distributed via Vertigo films by Lionsgate.

Rainmaker weren’t exactly greats in the genre as their only other theatrically released film was Escape to Planet Earth, a film that was not received well critically and floundered at the box office. Their niche was more in CG direct to video films and series such as ReBoot (they also did the Guardian Code, we’ll be back to that soon, don’t you worry)

Writing the film’s story is TJ Fixman, who had written the PS3-era games and the game tie-in to this, along with Gerry Swallow, writer of the Ice Age sequels and Kevin Monroe, who was also the film’s director. TJ Fixman apparently left the project before the writing process was complete but admits his fingerprints are ‘all over the film’.

So what went wrong? This film floundered hard, being lambasted by critics and ignored by audiences. I offered my theories in my original review (plug) so I’m just gonna stick with the story for this one.

Ratchet is a lombax stuck on the Kyzil Plateau on the planet Veldin, idolising the Galactic Rangers and wishing he could do more and be out in the galaxy, but he’s underestimated by said Rangers for being scrawny. His fate would change when a robotic defect of Chairman Drek’s army flees the facility and is shot down in Ratchet’s vicinity. He goes by Clank. Can they save the Galaxy from Drek’s evil plan?

Right, first off, this is a Galactic Ranger

I resent that they didn’t just call Qwark’s team the Q-force and be done with it. Fanboy complaints aside, Brax and Cora have maybe 2/3 of a personality between them, and Elaris’ only interesting feature is being voiced by Rosario Dawson. I don’t see why replacing them all with featureless robots wouldn’t have done the job, frankly.

Ratchet is the standard wide-eyed hero from every film with a hero’s journey ever (also several Disney princesses) he’s careless and a danger to others at the start and whilst some of that is addressed, most of it isn’t. Clank is maybe a little too perfect in the film. They seem to imply he might be a tad cowardly but that only seems to crop up when the plot wants it to rather than being a defining attribute to his character.

It’s funny how much this spits in the face of what they were trying to do in the original game. Ratchet dreamed of the stars, but became more and more disillusioned as he found his heroes were monsters, and money rules the universe. Clank was logical but naïve, willing to trust someone he thought would help, ignoring advice and falling into a trap.

The liar revealed bit where Ratchet pretends to be a friend of the rangers so he can come along is unnecessary. Clank needed a ride, and Ratchet’s the only person close with a ship he can get quickly, it’s not like the resolution’s all that funny, nor does it explore either character.

Captain Qwark’s personality would be familiar enough, as it’s basically the same as it had been since 3. To try and replicate his betrayal from the original game, they have it so that in 5 minutes, Ratchet’s fame has overshadowed Qwark’s which is ridiculous; and poorly explained in a 1-minute scene. Drek uses this to his advantage to manipulate him, which makes Qwark look dumber than his usual level of dumb.

Drek is way too over-the-top as the main villain. In the original game he was a serious villain and the comedy came from him reacting to the incompetence around him. It’s not impossible to do an over-the-top villain, Doctor Nefarious in past games had done it perfectly, but he always had a straight man, and Victor Von Ion isn’t it. Incidentally, I have nothing to say about Victor Von Ion, hope that pay-check was worth it, Stallone.

Doctor Nefarious is the other main villain of the story and again, he’s an over-the-top villain without a straight man, in fact there’s a scene where he’s playing straight man to Drek, what? Lawrence is sorely missed in every single scene he’s in. Was cramming him into this story really necessary? I’m not sure, probably not but it does tie back to the rangers as he was a former member, yeah, Doctor Nefarious once served the rangers… Now all the rangers, Elaris excluded, look like utter jerks as well as being blank slates.

All of this being said, I do still have a soft spot for this movie. The animation does have some problems in places but for the most part does its job. The vocal performances from the original characters are all solid and it does have a creative action climax, incorporating many of the various weapons introduced through the film. 

Ratchet and Clank is less than these characters deserved but if you have young children to entertain, you can do a lot worse.

Rating 40/100