My Review of "Ron's Gone Wrong"

Ron's Gone Wrong is a curious title that came out recently in 2021. It didn't take them that long for Disney to make it available on their streaming platform. There was barely any promotion for this movie and it wasn't in the theaters for that long either. I guess the pandemic is still hitting us hard and they thought it was best to make it available on Disney Plus.

The movie opens up with some tech demo. There's the grandiose presentation of a high tech CEO excited to show us the new toy they're going to sell us. This new device is actually a little robot with artificial intelligence. The robot is made to learn about their owner and befriend them. I could actually see this happening in real life if we had the technology.

Basically all of the kids have to have it and in this story all the kids do get them. That's of course with the exception of our main character Barney. He's an outcast that doesn't have any friends as all of his friends from kindergarten have grown out of friendship with him.

It's a sad tale but a very relatable one. Children and adults alike have grown out of friendships so it's an interesting topic to throw at us. Not only does Barney not have friends but his mother had passed away while he was younger. It's just him, his father and his doting grandmother. His mother is of some Eastern European descent and she kind of steals the show at times.

All that is a lot to take in for a kids movie. This kid obviously has had a lot of trauma at such a young age. I guess the writers equate complicated life with a complicated character however Barney still feels like a one dimensional kid. He just wants the same thing as all the other kids, a B-Bot robot to be his friend. I'm glad they kept this simple because I don't think kids would understand how complicated they could have made his character.

Barney's father and grandmother don't have a lot of money and don't really believe in kids getting addicted to technology. Of course, they've been apprehensive in getting him that precious B-Bot robot he's been wanting. That is until his birthday. They plan out this big birthday celebration with Barney but Barney never gave out any invites. He's scared that no one would want to come to his party.

They have everything all set up and they realize that Barney doesn't really have any friends. To remedy Barney's horrible day they decide to go get Barney his B-Bot robot. Unfortunately they get to the store really late and they don't have anymore B-Bots to sell.

Out in the back they find this guy with a van that has a B-Bot but it was damaged. The next day Barney wakes up to find a new B-Bot of his own. He's super ecstatic until he finds out that there's something wrong with this B-Bot. That's pretty much how the movie starts off.

It's an interesting concept because this B-Bot who they obviously name Ron plays upon the issues that we worry about with technology. They talk about privacy, social media fame and how we connect with one another through technology. However, the most important topic they tackle is what it means to be friends with one another.

Barney and Ron navigate life to understand what meaning friends have for one another. It's a fun trip because at first this movie seems really syrupy sweet. It's almost too much to take and then it quickly devolves because of Ron's malfunctions.

I'm seeing more and more animated movies that talk about social media and have talking robots or AI to help our main characters understand life. It's very weird because only a decade or two before we used to use animals to help our main characters do this. Now we have more adults that care a ton about animals because cartoons show that animals have humanity in them. Will these new animated movies have the same effect on this next generation with AI and robots?

At it's core this movie is a sweet and charming film that kind of fits in the middle of a wide assortment of animated movies. There's nothing huge that really makes it shine brighter than others. That's not to say that it's a bad movie. This movie is serviceable.

Overall, the most important thing was the fact that I had a good time watching it. There were some moments that I kind of drifted off because of the juvenile jokes and references. However it was an okay time and that's why I have to give it a 6 out of 10. I don't know if I would recommend this movie but if someone asked me if it was good I would tell them it wasn't bad.