(SPOILER WARNING!!! This article does contain spoilers, if you haven’t seen the movie, just see the first paragraph to be informed without spoilers!!!)

Ratchet and Clank may have a bland and rushed story, but the animated action and hilarity will keep you engaged!!!

Rating 3 Stars

I’m not familiar with the Ratchet and Clank video game. However, after seeing the trailer for the movie, I said, why not? It looked good enough for me to at least give it a gander.

What I Like: The first thing that engaged me is the movie’s comedy. The funny one liners, the sarcasm and the occasional slapstick really had me chuckling. One of my favorite things that had me laughing were the scenes that gave a subtitle of the location and adding a funny line on the bottom. It is sarcastically well done and it proved that they know this was just a movie and they had fun with it. The scene after the credits was funny as well, seeing a guy just shooing people out of the theater was classic. The animated action was pretty cool to watch. It is a space movie and the animators really worked with a great range that was fun. It was like a cartoon Star Wars without humans. The spaceship action and the laser guns or blasters and all the fight scenes made it fun for the whole family to enjoy, not just the kids. The comedy and action kept me engaged.

The So So: They had Sylvestor Stallone voicing Victor Von Ion, one of the villain’s main henchmen. It was fun to see him fight with the heroes of the movie, but was only there for literally a few minutes in this movie since he was easily defeated. A humongous robot voiced by Sly Stallone needed more time. It is a sin to not give him at least 20 minutes. Other well casted characters were underused like Paul Giamatti as one of the villains, Chairman Drek. Giamatti has a great villain voice, but he was underused. Also, John Goodman played Grimroth Razz, who was the inspirational character in this film, but was only there for a few minutes as well. A great voice cast that was underused was a little frustrating, but I enjoyed their time in the film.

What I Didn’t Like: The story was bland. It had all the stereotypical stuff for a hero kid’s movie. Like having a guy start as nothing, pursue a dream, get rejected and then accidentally do something to be accepted. Having a good guy betray them and then have second thoughts. Having more than one villain and they are fighting to be the true evil villain. Clichés like that really had my eyes rolling. To make matters worse, they rushed the story and character development which softened the emotional impact. I also thought this movie really tried to be like Star Wars. The main character, Ratchet voiced by James Arnold Taylor, was from a deserted planet working with mechanics. (Sounds familiar?) He had an intellectual robot who reminded me of C-3PO, only this robot, named Clank voiced by David Kaye, was midget sized. Ratchet becomes part of a hero team and pretty much saves the universe single handedly. All was missing was a Han Solo like character. It was just to0 familiar of a space opera that it would make George Lucas file a lawsuit. (Or maybe he can’t, since the rights belong to Disney, I don’t know.) Also, the writing in this movie, (on their TV screens or books) was too illegible for me to read and that was annoying.

Overall: The story of this movie was lethargic, but at least the action and comedy in this animated movie made it watchable at the very least. I’m not sure of fans of the video game will love or hate it, but if you take your family to this movie, you won’t be bored at the very least!!!

Rating 3 Stars