Ron's Gone Wrong 3D (PG)

Painfully shy pre-teen Barney Pudowski is the only kid in school without a B*Bot because his novelty toy salesman father, Graham, can't afford the device's price tag. When Barney's birthday beckons, Graham pays cash-in-hand for a B*Bot that - literally - fell off the back of a truck. The malfunctioning device called Ron wreaks havoc. Bubble company CEO Andrew Morris issues an order to recall and destroy Ron, forcing Barney and his misfiring mechanised mate to go on the run.

LondonNet Film Review
Ron’s Gone Wrong (PG)

A malfunctioning robot encourages an alienated boy to come out of his shell in a life-affirming computer-animated adventure, which combines lines of creative code from Big Hero 6, Short Circuit and Wall-E. Directed by Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine and Octavio E Rodriguez, Ron’s Gone Wrong is the debut release from British studio Locksmith Animation and perfectly sums up its own madcap intentions when one character quips, “It’s Mad Max meets Sesame Street!” There is a smattering of amusing gags in Peter Baynham and Smith’s script like when robot Ron notices a dropping on his clueless owner’s cheek and announces, “A bird has commented on your face.” Equally delightful is the deadpan delivery of a Bulgarian immigrant matriarch, who coolly asserts that “once, I mend my own hernia with bread knife and vodka…”

In filmmaking, timing is crucial and Ron’s Gone Wrong suffers the misfortune of arriving shortly after computer-animated caper The Mitchells Vs The Machines stormed Netflix with familial dysfunction, a malfunctioning AI and a virtually identical finale at a tech giant’s heavily protected headquarters. Smith, Vine and Rodriguez’s picture is sluggish and slight by comparison, though undeniably charming, and the visuals are impressive, especially during action-packed set-pieces.

Every child in America begs their parents to buy them a B*Bot. The pricy hi-tech companion manufactured by Bubble company uses an algorithm designed by wunderkind Marc (voiced by Justice Smith) to compare the young owner’s hobbies and facilitate local connections with like-minded tykes. B*Bots take the awkwardness out of social interaction but the automatons also drive apart friends, now deemed “incompatible” by the algorithm. Painfully shy pre-teen Barney Pudowski (Jack Dylan Grazer) is the only kid in school without a B*Bot because his novelty toy salesman father, Graham (Ed Helms), can’t afford the device’s price tag.

When Barney’s birthday beckons, Graham deliberates what to buy. “Get him something really useful, like a snow shovel,” suggests the boy’s grandmother, Donka (Olivia Colman). Concerned by his boy’s lack of friends, Graham pays cash-in-hand for a B*Bot that – literally – fell off the back of a truck. The malfunctioning device called Ron (Zach Galifianakis) wreaks havoc and fails to endear Barney to popular classmates Savannah (Kylie Cantrall) and Rich (Ricardo Hurtado). Instead, Bubble company CEO Andrew Morris (Rob Delaney) issues an order to recall and destroy Ron, forcing Barney and his misfiring mechanised mate to go on the run.

Ron’s Gone Wrong gets quite a few things right and the eponymous robot is a merchandising dream: a rotund, glowing white capsule of child-like curiosity, emboldened by Galifianakis’ ebullient vocals. Outside of the Barney and Ron bubble, supporting characters lack development. The script’s call to arms to make friends offline feels timely, even though some of the narrative devices are resolutely old-fashioned.

– Jo Planter