I watched the 2016 Ratchet and Clank movie on Netflix. I loved the PS2 games to death as a kid, but this movie (which is a retelling of the first game) was a huge disappointment for me. My biggest beef with it is how they handled the characters personalities—it seems they put the cliche plot in priority over making the characters interesting, and it shows. In the original game, Ratchet was a hotshot jerk who gradually mellowed into a snarky adventurer, and he and the intellectual, nerdy Clank played off each other a lot as they went on their adventures, even when they had a bad falling out. There was a real episodic charm to the first game, because the original game had no real writer on board—the dev team just made up the story as they went, and this gave them lots of room to build up the characters quirks and chemistry in a way that probably couldn't have been done in a more regimented plot. In the movie, they completely destroyed their chemistry. Ratchet is now a bland Luke Skywalker clone, Clank doesn't interact or play off him that well as a result and is given the backseat to a bunch of other new supporting characters. While Captain Qwark is more or less the same ham as before, I felt the movie shouldn't have given him more character focus than Ratchet himself. Turning Chairmen Drek from a cunning sociopath and parody of slimy executives into a bumbling goofball to make room for the films other villain, the one-note Dr. Nefarious, was a terrible mistake. The rest of the characters are completely forgettable and unengaging.
While the animation is very professional and a significant improvement over the now badly dated graphics of the original game, it just doesn't have that same feeling of fun to it, whether its in the art or in the acting. On top of that, they completely sanded down the humor of the original game into nothing—the original game had a sense of humor that was kindof like what you'd get from hanging out with your college buddies while playing video games and engaging in nerd culture. This movie throws all that out for lazy writerspeak jokes (theres a gag that really grated my nerves—during the city battle, a robot falls over a wall and bellows the infamous Wilhelm Scream, prompting another soldier to reach other and call "Wilhelm!") and tired sight gags, and feels like it was just solely made for kids in mind. Everything about the film just feels so uninspired and stale. All in all, I'm in no hurry to rewatch this one again.
Huge disappointment for a nostalgic fan.
I watched the 2016 Ratchet and Clank movie on Netflix. I loved the PS2 games to death as a kid, but this movie (which is a retelling of the first game) was a huge disappointment for me. My biggest beef with it is how they handled the characters personalities—it seems they put the cliche plot in priority over making the characters interesting, and it shows. In the original game, Ratchet was a hotshot jerk who gradually mellowed into a snarky adventurer, and he and the intellectual, nerdy Clank played off each other a lot as they went on their adventures, even when they had a bad falling out. There was a real episodic charm to the first game, because the original game had no real writer on board—the dev team just made up the story as they went, and this gave them lots of room to build up the characters quirks and chemistry in a way that probably couldn't have been done in a more regimented plot. In the movie, they completely destroyed their chemistry. Ratchet is now a bland Luke Skywalker clone, Clank doesn't interact or play off him that well as a result and is given the backseat to a bunch of other new supporting characters. While Captain Qwark is more or less the same ham as before, I felt the movie shouldn't have given him more character focus than Ratchet himself. Turning Chairmen Drek from a cunning sociopath and parody of slimy executives into a bumbling goofball to make room for the films other villain, the one-note Dr. Nefarious, was a terrible mistake. The rest of the characters are completely forgettable and unengaging.
While the animation is very professional and a significant improvement over the now badly dated graphics of the original game, it just doesn't have that same feeling of fun to it, whether its in the art or in the acting. On top of that, they completely sanded down the humor of the original game into nothing—the original game had a sense of humor that was kindof like what you'd get from hanging out with your college buddies while playing video games and engaging in nerd culture. This movie throws all that out for lazy writerspeak jokes (theres a gag that really grated my nerves—during the city battle, a robot falls over a wall and bellows the infamous Wilhelm Scream, prompting another soldier to reach other and call "Wilhelm!") and tired sight gags, and feels like it was just solely made for kids in mind. Everything about the film just feels so uninspired and stale. All in all, I'm in no hurry to rewatch this one again.