Mark Reviews Movies: RON'S GONE WRONG

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 21, 2021

We all like an innocent little misfit, and that's the thinking behind the eponymous, artificially intelligent robot of Ron's Gone Wrong. The little "B-bot," as the device is marketed, can talk, walk or drive around on its wheels, decorate itself with customized skins, connect to its owner's entire social media presence, and otherwise be a "best friend out of a box." The specific robot of the title, dropped from the back of a delivery truck and banged up from the fall, has a few flaws, such as not having an internet connection and only having knowledge of the "A" section of the database. It also has a few other skills, like the ability to swing a meat cleaver with little regard for anyone or anything nearby.

The idea of this character is adorably demented and dementedly adorable. At its most successful, Peter Baynham and co-director Sarah Smith's screenplay has some fun with all of the trouble that Ron (voice of Zach Galifianakis), the malfunctioning robot, can and does and doesn't really mean to get into while going about its innocent existence as a defective piece of advanced technology.

Ron doesn't know any better because, well, it technically can't. It's just trying to do what robots like it are meant to be doing. If that means an old lady is going to be accidentally held hostage or a random baby might unintentionally end up kidnapped, that's just part of the learning process of an android trying to make friends. Yes, the movie does get that dark in its humor, so it's a good thing this a computer-animated venture. A cartoon robot inadvertently abducting an old lady and a baby is funny, and that's one of the many freedoms allowed by animation.

The inescapably cute but almost certainly dangerous robot here is the movie's best feature. When Ron is simply allowed to make life a bigger problem for its owner, a pre-teen kid named Barney (voice of Jack Dylan Grazer) who already has several problems at home and at school, the rather simple story can be and often is quite amusing. Barney isn't popular with the kids in his class. Surely, having a little robot, purchased off the street by his widower father (voice of Ed Helms) and peculiarly old-fashioned grandmother (voice of Olivia Colman), going around town basically begging strangers to be the kid's friend isn't going to help Barney's social status.

One wonders if the basic idea of these B-bots is going to help any kid's status in actual society, as opposed to making new connections online, but this story also acknowledges—and maybe doesn't help in adjusting the notion—that the kids these days are living a significant portion of their lives on and through the internet. After a lengthy story that's entirely about using robots to broaden those online connections and making friends with a more eccentric version of a robot, the filmmakers do eventually suggest that real-life human-to-human bonds are what really matter. It seems unlikely that most kids will get that message, since the movie does a lot more than just acknowledge a world online and with virtual assistants/friends, but they'll definitely want to get a Ron of their own.

That's part of the problem here on a social and cultural level at least. As Barney and Ron start to become real friends, the story also involves a subplot featuring a battle between two figures and philosophies at the company that makes the B-bots. Marc (voice of Justice Smith) is an honest broker, who sincerely just wants kids to have a dependable pal and to make more friends, and Andrew (voice of Rob Delaney) sees the robots as an opportunity to have a camera and microphone in hundreds of millions of homes around the world.

Baynham, Smith, and Jean-Philippe Vine, the movie's other director, don't seem to understand that the "good guy" tech mogul's goals and execution are exactly what makes the "bad guy" executive's invasive plan possible. Adults will almost certainly see through this cognitive dissonance, but one does have to wonder what kids will take from such blatantly inconsistent ideas framed as a simple fight between a good guy and a bad guy.

Anyway, Ron learning—and constantly failing—to be a friend to and make friends for Barney is funny, thanks to some clever—and occasionally twisted—gags, as well as Galifianakis' deadpan line delivery. The rest of the jokes, featuring Barney's weird family and some chaos when Ron's defective code unleashes the strange potential of the rest of the school's B-bots, feel strained. There's an underlying sweetness to the bond that does develop between the boy and his quirky robot, so it's inevitably frustrating when the philosophical battle between the company executives transforms the straightforward story into a generic plot revolving around a chase and a heist.

The core of Ron's Gone Wrong, which is a solid and satirical gag about the failures of technology, possesses some promise. Everything surrounding it, though, is underwhelming, misguided, or both.

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