By: Andrew Wing

Ron’s Gone Wrong is a 2021 computer-animated science fiction comedy film directed by Jean-Philippe Vine and Sarah Smith (director of Arthur Christmas), co-directed by Octavio E. Rodriguez, and written by Peter Baynham (co-wrote the screenplay for Hotel Transylvania) and Smith. The film takes place in a world where walking, talking, digitally connected bots are now children’s best friends, but one 11-year-old boy, Barney Pudowski, finds out through an incredible series of events that his robot buddy Ron doesn’t quite work the same as the others do.

The film stars an ensemble voice cast which includes Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover trilogy, Due Date) as the titular malfunctioning B-bot Ron, Jack Dylan Grazer (It, Shazam!, Luca) as Ron’s owner, the socially awkward and lonesome middle-schooler Barney Pudowski, Ed Helms (The Hangover trilogy, The Office) as Barney’s father Graham, Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Pokémon Detective Pikachu) as Marc, the creator of the B-bot and CEO of the Bubble company, Rob Delaney (Catastrophe, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw) as the antagonist Andrew, who is the COO of the Bubble company, Kylie Cantrall as Barney’s classmate Savannah Meades, Ricardo Hurtado (Glitch Techs) as Rich Belcher, another one of Barney’s classmates, and the award-winning Olivia Colman (The Crown, The Father) as Donka, Barney’s paternal grandmother.

It is the first film from Locksmith Animation and was distributed by 20th Century Studios, serving as the company’s first animated film to release since the closure of Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age, Robots, Horton Hears a Who!, Rio) on April 10, 2021. Ron’s Gone Wrong had its world premiere at the 2021 BFI London Film Festival on October 9, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on October 15 and in the United States a week later on October 22, 2021.

THE GOOD

I won’t lie, as crazy as the month of October has been for movies, Ron’s Gone Wrong completely fell off my radar. However, once I checked out the trailer for a second time, I soon remembered why it was even on my radar in the first place. It is an original story that put off a lot of Big Hero 6 vibes simply because of the inclusion of a robot, but it also is headlined by one of my favorite comedy actors Zach Galifianakis as the B-bot Ron, and the rising actor that is Jack Dylan Grazer, whose voice I am already very familiar with after watching Disney Pixar’s Luca (see full review here) earlier this year. Go ahead and throw in the inclusion of one of the funniest guys in the industry in Ed Helms, and arguably one of the best actresses working today Olivia Colman, and I was pumped for this.

After having some time to sit back and think about this film, I have to say my favorite thing about it was the story. It is so tough nowadays, with animated “kid” movies especially, to come up with a unique story that hasn’t been seen before and I think the writers involved did just that with Ron’s Gone Wrong. Now don’t get me wrong, it is not free of those conventional methods of storytelling that we see in most children's movies, but the story itself I found to be quite unfamiliar. It seems like in today’s world, we are becoming more dependent on technology by the day (I am guilty of that myself) and also that young children today rely too much on technology as a means of entertainment and happiness. With that said, I don’t think this movie could have come out at a better time as we are slowly getting things back to normal post-COVID, because I loved the message this movie was trying to send us. Their message wasn’t going all in and bashing the amount of technology kids use today, but instead, Ron’s Gone Wrong just shows us that there is no better way to connect and socialize with each other than face-to-face.

The second main thing that I found to be great about Ron’s Gone Wrong was the overall performance by the voice cast. Jack Dylan Grazer should obviously take whatever role he wants in the future, but if I am him, I might just stick with voice acting because he just has the perfect teenager voice. It is impressive how many different emotions he was able to portray in this film using just his voice and it is obvious that he has a very bright future ahead of him. Grazer was great, but the best voice acting in this comes from Zach Galifianakis as the titular character Ron. There were so many great things from Ron with both his running bits throughout the film with Barney, and also his more emotional dialogue towards the end, but I had a smile on my face so many times watching Ron truly GO WRONG, and I don’t think I would have enjoyed those scenes as much if it were a different voice behind the character. The rest of the voice cast was amazing too, but I just have to say Rob Delaney has one of the most uniquely recognizable voices and I would love to see him voice more antagonistic characters in future animated films because he was phenomenal in this.

I also thought the animation was very well done in this, but that is no surprise when you have 20th Century Studios working with DNEG, one of the best companies when it comes to visual effects and computer animation. Lastly, because of a stacked bunch of animated films coming out in 2021, Ron’s Gone Wrong might be on the outside looking in when it comes to receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature Film, but there is always a chance and I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing that.

THE BAD

Like most children's movies that I have seen/reviewed, I have a hard time finding anything “bad” with them, and if you thought I was going to go off the beaten track for that with Ron’s Gone Wrong, you are sorely mistaken.

It is in no way a perfect animated film like Toy Story and The Lion King are, and as I said earlier, it does fall victim to some of those common methods of storytelling that we frequently get with these animated children's movies, but there is no denying that overall, Ron’s Gone Wrong is an original story that people of all ages will enjoy.

THE VERDICT

Despite it being subpar in my eyes to other computer-animated science fiction comedies dealing with robots like Big Hero 6 and The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Ron’s Gone Wrong still holds its own with its unique story that takes aim at iPhone culture in today’s age of social media.

It exceeded my expectations with its super smart and funny writing, on-point social commentary, colorful animation, solid voice cast, and an abundance of extremely pure and heartfelt moments that people of all ages will enjoy on the big screen this fall!