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.

Sequel Month - Ratchetrospective - Ratchet and Clank (2016)

I know this isn’t really a sequel but a reboot/movie tie-in game but it’s the next entry in the Ratchet and Clank series, and that’s enough for it to count for sequel month

Ratchet and Clank came out in April 2016 to positive reviews and decent sales, a polar opposite story to the movie it was tying into. Insomniac games are pros at this point but they were really up against the wall on this one, 8 months is the time they had to develop the core game, bearing in mind the Ratchet and Clank Movie debuted at a film festival in May 2015 and it could’ve gone to cinema at any point. The extra time had only a skeleton crew and was used to polish things up. The result is we have a budget title that, whilst more expensive than Insomniac’s previous budget titles, does feel more like a full game.

But, how does Ratchet and Clank hold up as a game? Well, let’s give it the Ratchetrospective treatment

Guilty Pleasures #30 - Ratchet and Clank

Video Game adaptations are a cursed breed, aren’t they? If they’re not critical failures they’re commercial failures, and that’s why it’s heart-breaking as a fan to see that Ratchet and Clank was a critical and commercial flop. Produced on a $20m budget, it made back only $13m, it would’ve needed to have made nearer $50m to be classified a success. The critics lambasted it and holds a staggering 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.

So are the critics right? Why did this movie fail? I have a few theories but there’s start by looking at the plot.

Ratchetrospective: Ratchet and Clank

Welcome to the Ratchetrospective

Throughout the month of April (give or take a few days) I’ll be looking at the Ratchet and Clank games developed by the developer Insomniac Games (apologies for giving Size Matters the shaft but my PSP is non-operational at this point) in preparation for the Movie coming out this month. Here are my ground rules

1. This will be based on a single play through of the game, no challenge modes
2. These playthroughs will be from a new save file.
3. I will not be covering the movie tie-in game, I want to avoid spoiling that - although be aware the plot will have similarities to the first game
4. Spoilers will be covered in these reviews
5. I will not be completing all skill points and gold/platinum/titanium bolt missions; I will be getting all Zoni in a Crack in Time
6. I will not be exploring all the Insomniac Museums
7. I will not be getting 100% on Collectathon Missions (except for Nexus, since it’s a requirement for the RYNO)
8. I will not necessarily be completing all arena challenges
9. I will be completing all optional help the ranger challenges in Ratchet and Clank 3 
10. I will be completing all optional missions in Ratchet: Gladiator (Deadlocked)
11. Multiplayer modes will not be covered in depth
12. All games will be played Single Player – no co-op in Gladiator, All4One or Q-force

So, let’s dig into the one that started it all (and the one that inspired the movie) with Ratchet and Clank