Ron’s Gone Wrong Review

Ron’s Gone Wrong is the first feature film from Locksmith Animation. Their first film was a delightful experience that shows as it explores the perils of big tech and social media.

In the near future, the CEO of Bubble, Marc Weidell (Justice Smith) announces his new innovation, the B-Bot. The B-Bot becomes the most desirable product in the world and in a small American town every Middle-Schooler has one, except, Barney Pudowski (Jack Dylan Grazer). When Barney does get a B-Bot he ends up being disappointed because it turns out to be faulty.

When the trailers for Ron’s Gone Wrong came out it seemed like a standard and unremarkable animated film. So, it was a pleasant surprise to find out Ron’s Gone Wrong was a sweet film.

Ron’s Gone Wrong has a simple core and explores the age of technology we are currently living in. At its heart Ron’s Gone Wrong was a story about friendship with Barney becoming closer and closer with Ron during the run time. It was a typical arc because Barney was embarrassed by Ron and tries to take him back to the store, but the young protagonist finds Ron can be useful.

Ron was unable to assess the Bubble servers to learn about Barney through his social media profiles Barney had to teach Ron. This led to some touching moments like Ron learning that Barney has a fear of the dark so comforts the boy by glowing in the dark. This friendship gives both characters a drive and there were stakes since both characters had to save each other at some point.

One of Locksmith Animation’s founders was Sarah Smith and she co-directed Ron’s Gone Wrong with Jean-Philippe Vine and Octavio E. Rodriguez. Smith and Vine were veterans from Aardman Animation and Rodriguez worked as a story artist for Pixar. Aardman and Pixar have great reputations in the world of animation, and they all used their experience for Ron’s Gone Wrong. They gave the film’s story and character the necessary level of sincerity and the animation in film can match the big boys.

Ron’s Gone Wrong plays like a family-friendly version of a Black Mirror story. Black Mirror often shows the perils of technology and social media. In Ron’s Gone Wrong the B-Bots were as popular as iPods and Furbies and they consumed the lives of their owners. Marc was shown to be well-meaning with his invention because he wanted B-Bots to help kids to make friends: but the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Ron’s Gone Wrong showed the pitfalls of people who lived through their B-Bots. Kids without a B-Bot were ostracised, and people ended up expressing their individuality with pop culture iconography. The film also shows the issues with social media on young people. One of Barney’s school friends suffers after an embarrassing video goes viral and another was desperate to become a YouTube sensation by making prank videos and people disliked him because of it. In the film, the B-Bots were able to match kids to potential friends but there were issues with people picking friends through an algorithm.

Bubble was shown to be an amalgamation of most of the tech giants. It was Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok all in one. As stated, B-Bots were the most in-demand item like Apple products. Like many of these companies, Bubble had an ulterior motive: data harvesting. The villain of the film, Andrew (Rob Delaney) was a mix of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. Andrew was a showman who dressed in a hoodie and who had humble beginnings, but his only motivation was money, and harvesting data and targeting ads were the way to do it.

Ron’s Gone Wrong unintentionally had similarities to Free Guy. Both films acted as a commentary of modern technology – in Free Guy’s case, it was about video games. Both films show artificial beings able to gain self-awareness for unexpected reasons. They make good companion pieces.

Whilst Ron’s Gone Wrong had a lot of strengths the story was at times messy. The film did go in many different directions like when Barney and Ron were running away into the woods and it ends on a heist mission.

Ron’s Gone Wrong was an excellent first effort from a new animation studio with a film that delight all ages. It has a great mix of family-friendly humour, emotional moments, and social commentaries for the adults.