3.0 out of 5 star rating<\/span> <\/span> <\/div> <\/div> New animation Ron\u2019s Gone Wrong (from 20th Century Studios which these days, sort of means Disney) is a bit of a Trojan horse. While its setting and cast are resolutely American it\u2019s actually the brainchild of British studio Locksmith Animation, and it\u2019s not hard to see this film\u2019s playful, wicked sense of humour as a reflection of that origin.<\/p>\n
The story is familiar \u2013 a new craze is sweeping the schoolyard, and every kid in town seems to have their hands on the hot new toy. But this time it\u2019s not Pok\u00e9mon Cards, Tazzos or even iPhones distracting the students \u2013 instead they\u2019re glued to slick, high-tech robots called B-Bots, which sort of function as a smartphone-meets-Furby \u201cbest friend\u201d to their owners.<\/p>\n
Created by a standard Apple\/Google-alike company called Bubble (hence Bubble-bots), these creations can talk, play games, project images, sing, take photos, \u201cdress\u201d as different characters (including, handily, a few Marvel and Star Wars figures presumably borrowed from Disney) and even come with a basic kind of AI.<\/p>
They\u2019re perfect, in other words, marketed as \u201cyour best friend out of the box\u201d \u00ad \u2013 and the only kid who doesn\u2019t have one is our friendless hero Barney (Jack Dylan Glazer), who struggles with loneliness and his eccentric family (including Ed Helms as a hapless WFH dad and Olivia Colman as a wild Eastern European grandmother) and longs to be part of the crowd.<\/p>\n
Soon, he gets his own B-Bot \u2013 but there\u2019s a catch. This unit is damaged, unable to connect to the internet and missing key programming. Horrified, Barney has to watch as his longed-for gift shouts bizarre phrases, destroys his possessions and regularly fails to perform the most basic functions. Its one remaining imperative? To be Barney\u2019s best friend, whether he likes it or not.<\/p>\n
Soon nicknamed \u201cRon\u201d thanks to its serial number, this broken bot (voiced with upbeat glee by The Hangover\u2019s Zach Galifianakis) is entertainingly eccentric, retaining no information about the world except words beginning with A (due to its halted information download), creaking with the familiar internet dial-up tone when asked questions and regularly losing arms, legs and pixelated facial features as it whacks into its surroundings.<\/p>\n