Review by Bob Ignizio
I’ve been a huge fan of the Ratchet & Clank video games
since the original came out on the Playstation 2 back in 2002. It was one of
those rare games that was not only fun to play, but the little scenes between
the gameplay sections were hugely entertaining as well. The characters, the
plot, the humor – all were on a par with all but the absolute best CG animated
movies I’ve seen. So Ratchet and Clank seemed like a natural to make the jump
to their own big screen adventure.
Sadly, the new RATCHET & CLANK movie proves that’s not the case.
The plot of the film goes back to the original Ratchet and
Clank game to tell the origin of how this unlikely duo – a weird
anthropomorphic cat thing named Ratchet (James Arnold Taylor) and a defective
robot named Clank (David Kaye) – came together to save the universe from evil
businessman Chairman Dreck (Paul Giamatti), who wants to blow up several
planets and reuse the pieces to make a new one of his own since his race has
poisoned their original homeworld. They figure their best bet is to team up
with intergalactic hero Captain Quark (Jim Ward) and his space rangers. But
Quark turns out to be a vain idiot willing to sell out to the bad guy, so it’s
up to R & C to take matters into their own hands.
Since there’s also a
tie-in game that updates the same story for the new Playstation 4, this is
really more of a reboot/remake than a straight adaptation, though, which means
things have been tweaked. And not for the better.
The story has been dumbed down, and both new characters and
favorites from later games have been added to the mix, serving only to clutter
things up and detract from the story and humor that made the original game so
entertaining. In particular, trying to shoehorn the villain Dr. Nefarious (Armin
Shimerman) into this story only serves to make the other villain, Chairman
Dreck, pointless and redundant.
On top of all that, in what may be the height of laziness,
both game and movie utilize much of the same footage. I don’t know from which
source the footage originated, but one way or another some major recycling is
going on. So if you’ve already played the game, which is more in depth and
better captures the spirit of the original series, you are to a large degree
paying to see cutscenes from the game on a big screen. There’s some original
material (I’d guess it’s about half and half), but none of it is all that good.
So gamers, stick with the game. Everyone else, avoid it like the plague. 1 out
of 4 stars.
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