Ron’s Gone Wrong is a good cartoon about friendship in modern realities, which will be equally interesting for children and adults. This is a story about the adventures of a schoolboy outsider and a funny robot that stays offline because of a breakdown.
Ron’s Gone Wrong movie meaning
Genre cartoon
Directors Jean-Philippe Vinet, Sarah Smith, Octavio E. Rodriguez
Starring Zach Galifianakis (Ron the B-Bot), Jack Dylan Grazer (Barney Pudowski), Olivia Colman (Barney’s grandmother), Ed Helms (Barney’s father), Justice Smith (Mark), Rob Delaney (Andrew), Kylie Cantrall (Savannah), Ricardo Hurtado (Rich), and more.
Studios Locksmith Animation, 20th Century Studios, Twentieth Century Fox Animation
Year of release 2021
IMDb Sites
The cartoon takes place in the not-too-distant future, where a major technology company introduces a unique product – a bi-bot. It is a universal device that will help a child find friends by interests. B-bots can post photos and videos, search for like-minded people online and change their interface, adjusting to the owner’s hobbies. In addition, b-bots always accompany children, staying only outside of school classrooms.
Barney seems to be the only student who still doesn’t have a b-bot. The boy has difficulties in communication, in addition, he constantly endures ridicule. The hero lives with an eccentric Bulgarian grandmother and an eternally busy father who works from a home office. Barney is used to having chickens and goats running around in their kitchen, and his relatives listen to old records with oddball motifs, not understanding why robots are needed for live communication. Despite this, the family notices the boy’s sadness and buys him a b-bot. Except that the device works with failures, so Barney becomes an even greater outsider, which eventually turns into an exciting adventure, thanks to which the hero learns what real friendship is.
The computer animation Ron’s Gone Wrong was the debut of British company Locksmith Animation. Their very first project turned out to be a worthy one for a pretty obvious reason – the creators were joined in the ranks by members of the art departments from Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks Animation. Among them is director Octavio E. Rodriguez, who worked on the Oscar-winning animated film Coco. He and the entire creative team did a quality job and decided to have some fun by decorating the characters with oddly shaped ears.
The cartoon seems fun not only because of this detail, it has a lot of funny situations and comical moments. So, the adult audience will certainly please the grandmother of the protagonist – cheerful anti-communist in a hoodie, who dashingly drives the car and not to the point gives advice in the form of sayings. There is also a father in a strict shirt and pajama pants, who negotiates with clients via video link. And, of course, especially for older viewers, the CEO of the company that released the b-bot appears in the cartoon – a smug man in glasses, looking like Steve Jobs, who wants to get rich by collecting user data.
Ron’s Gone Wrong pokes fun at the politics of big corporations, which put on beautiful shows during presentations to investors and customers. But the animation focuses on the theme of children’s loneliness: it is not easy for everyone to make new acquaintances, and simple communication is sometimes given very difficult, schoolchildren feel awkward if their relatives are different from other adults, when the family can not afford expensive devices, the child becomes an outcast against the background of peers.
The creators of the cartoon cautiously approach the problems that are extremely relevant to the modern world, and some time later b-bots no longer seem like a crazy fiction – they only emphasize the role that technology and social networks play in children’s communication these days.
The protagonist Barney is sympathetic, and his interaction with the broken b-bot goes from frustrating disappointment to genuine affection. As the robot, named Ron, lacks the data necessary for friendship, Barney fills in the missing information himself. Gradually, getting into funny situations, feeling annoyed and noticing his own selfishness, the boy begins to realize what a real two-way friendship is. And the robot, which the corporation would prefer to dispose of, turns out to be the most successful b-bot.
Thanks to the main characters, the cartoon wants to put a high mark, but, unfortunately, not everything is perfect in it. Near the end, events become very disorderly, Barney’s evil peers change dramatically, and the ending is a little disappointing. But the cartoon is still worthy of a trip to the movies – it’s topical, funny, visually pleasing (the events taking place in the forest are especially memorable) and, most importantly, it aptly hits the difficult subject of childhood loneliness.
Pros:
Moments where kids feel alienated; grandmother character; irony about big tech companies; there are memorable moments
Minuses:
Toward the end, events become disorderly; ending can be a bit disappointing
Conclusion:
A fun, relevant and important computer animation about friendship in modern realities, created by collaborators from the art departments of Pixar and DreamWorks.
