Ron’s Gone Wrong is the first animation by Locksmith Animation and as such, it is a fine strong effort. The story is modern and will be relevant to the target audience although not ground-breaking and does not say anything new.
The film itself moves with a good pace with all the acts or set-ups moving smoothly into the next so that the viewers' interest does not wain. The entire story focuses on Ron the robot and Barney the lonely ‘weird kid’ with peripheral characters dropping in and out to create situations or move the story along.
The voice acting is good throughout and helps flesh out the characters with the unrecognisable Zach Galifianakis excelling in the difficult role of Ron.
The message of the film is earnest and hopefully not wasted on the modern young viewers because no matter how ‘pat’ or familiar it seems it is true that fame is fleeting, the stupid things that happen to us and mistakes we make are not eternal and we should like our friends for who they are not how much like us they are. Certainly, these points are made well and a soft mallet is used, not always the case in these types of films, especially when aimed at younger audiences.
The comedy is clearly aimed at the younger film watcher so moments where I did not laugh or felt seemed forced should not really count against the film or my viewing enjoyment as they really were never on the screen for me and there was enough fun and joy in the story which was universal anyway.
If anything parts of the story and in particular the characters introduced seemed to be building towards something that was never resolved for me. It is as if a different film was written and storyboarded and changed several times but the makers forgot that a few scenes or lines still pointed towards parts that were no longer in the story. Nothing major but I found it noticeable as I was anticipating something occurring further down the running time.
Overall, Ron's Gone Wrong is a good voice-acted, well-animated slice of fun that does get a message across about the modern social media, connection-obsessed world. It does it with some heart and a sense of fun and you cannot really say they're preaching because that is the whole story's intent.
Ron's Gone Wrong is a good slice of animation hokum, it is not award-winning, but neither is it cookie-cutter here we go again. A good effort and not disappointing to watch. Ron Went Right you could say.
It might have good intentions, but I just couldn't get into it. It was a very loud, slightly obnoxious film and the central message was noble but the way it was being done just grated.
Not one for me unfortunately.