Ron’s Gone Wrong
I did not know what to expect with “Ron’s Gone Wrong.” I had seen the trailer, but was it going to be something where it’s just ridiculous jokes and a “Big Hero 6” clone? This movie blindsided me in the most enjoyable of ways; don’t get too caught up in what the trailer shows- it basically amounts to some of the first 15 minutes of one of the most endearing family movies in recent years.
The social media age is a strange one. If someone likes something we tweet or share on Facebook or Instagram, does that mean they like us? The idea of putting technology in front of kids and just letting them go feels like an understandable impulse, but I think there’s a limit to how that satisfies them. When you feel like an outsider because you are not part of the social media circle, however, that makes you feel even more depressed. That’s kind of where Barney (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer, who seems to have an affinity for these characters, after this, “Shazam” and “It”) is at the start of this movie. He’s been on the outside looking in since a birthday party-gone-wrong when he was six; now, every one of his friends has a B*Bot, and he doesn’t. The Fear of Missing Out is strong with him.
What is a B*Bot? It is the latest technological creation from Bubble. It is an AI friend whom digests your online personality, and connects you with other people around the world. Barney so wants one, but his father (Ed Helms) and grandmother (Olivia Colman) are stuck in their own worlds to really realize how much Barney wants one for his birthday, which he spends alone, as he’s afraid to invite people to the party his family wants to have for him. When he wakes up in the morning, they have a surprise for him, but there’s something a bit off about this B*Bot compared to the ones he sees people like Savannah and Rich- classmates who used to be his friends- with. Will Barney be able to connect with Ron (his B*Bot, voiced hilariously by Zach Galifianakis)?
I’m going to leave out some key details of the narrative, but Ron turns out to be the ideal B*Bot for Barney (obviously), and a big part of it is how off-kilter he is compared to other B*Bots, and the way his father procured him. As the narrative goes on, there’s a genuine arc to Barney and Ron’s friendship that really resonates because it gets to some fundamental tenants about friendship that we sometimes forget when we’re just focused on a computer screen. Grazer and Galifianakis are an ideal pair for these characters, and there are times when they get a surprising amount of emotion out of the roles, in addition to the comedy. It’s funny how the screenplay by Peter Baynham and Sarah Smith plays out the larger social ideas about Big Tech in this film in addition to the struggles of youth, and how those collide in unexpected ways. Ron may go wrong in the film, but “Ron’s Gone Wrong” gets an awful lot right to be one of the most welcome animated films of the year.
