Ratchet is on a mission to become a Galactic Ranger in "Ratchet & Clank."
Ratchet is on a mission to become a Galactic Ranger in "Ratchet & Clank."
Photo: Aperture Media Partners, HOA still from "Ratchet and Clank." (Aperture Media Partners)
A still from "Ratchet and Clank." (Aperture Media Partners)
Photo: Aperture Media Partners, HOLooking at the history of movies based on video games, there are a few basic rules for filmmakers to follow:
1. Don't make movies based on video games.
2. If you have to make the movie, forget that it originally was a video game.
3. Cast a major role for Milla Jovovich[1].
The producers of "Ratchet & Clank" ignore each of these rules in their adaptation of the popular PlayStation game.
And yet, if we were grading on a curve, "Ratchet & Clank" would fare pretty well. It's by no means memorably atrocious. Instead, its badness has an anonymous quality, ensuring the film will appear on few "worst video-game film of all time" lists, mostly because no one will recall its existence. I watched "Ratchet & Clank" less than 24 hours before writing this, taking notes throughout, and I can barely remember it.
The film begins with Ratchet, a catlike alien and spaceship mechanic who wants to be an elite Galactic Ranger. He teams with acerbic droid Clank to fight endless waves of robotic soldiers, while exchanging one-liners with bad guy Chairman Drek (Paul Giamatti[2]).
All of the above worked fantastically in the innovative video games "Ratchet & Clank" and "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando" in the early 2000s. In a market filled with stonefaced shoot-em-ups and irony-free fights to the death, the storytelling and dialogue from developers Insomniac Games[3] stood out as very smart and witty.
Transferred to the animated film universe of the 2010s, with "The Lego Movie" and one or two Pixar[4] movies every year, these same plot lines and jokes are nothing special. The alien galaxy, that looked so amazing in 2002 on the just-released PlayStation 2 system, seems hastily conceived on the big screen, with a lot of motion but very little depth. Another negative: You can put down a video game any time you want. Once you pay your money, you're stuck with "Ratchet & Clank" for 94 straight minutes.
And it's not a fast 94 minutes.
"Ratchet & Clank" unfolds the way time passes at the DMV[5]. There's a single television episode's worth of plot in this movie, stretched out into feature length with a series of unremarkable battles.
The positives? My 8-year-old loved it. But he would eat dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets for every meal if I let him, so let's not consider his opinion. Some of the weapons are pretty cool, and Clank (voice by David Kaye[6]) is a fun character. Directors Jericca Cleland[7] and Kevin Munroe[8] don't seem to be carelessly cashing in. They make an effort to reflect the vibe of the game, which fans will appreciate.
But if you don't already have a poster of Ratchet and Clank on your wall, there's nothing in this movie that will make you want to put one there. With so many good family film offerings - "The Jungle Book" and "Zootopia" are both still in theaters - this world is best left in the brimming video-game movie refuse bin.
References
- ^ Milla Jovovich (www.chron.com)
- ^ Paul Giamatti (www.chron.com)
- ^ Insomniac Games (www.chron.com)
- ^ Pixar (www.chron.com)
- ^ DMV (www.chron.com)
- ^ David Kaye (www.chron.com)
- ^ Jericca Cleland (www.chron.com)
- ^ Kevin Munroe (www.chron.com)
