Movie Month: Ratchet & Clank (Part 1)

An issue I have with some of the films I want to review is that they’re for gaming franchises that I’ve yet to play. I’ve never played a Ratchet & Clank game – or if I have, it was for 10 minutes at a demo set up at a video game store or something. I may have had friends who owned a PlayStation console and, thus had one of the games in the series, but I unfortunately can’t remember who.

But that’s okay – guess I’ll keep rolling with my basic theory that a film adaptation of a video game movie must be good as a standalone film. Even if the franchise is moderately famous, there’ll be people who’ve never experienced it, and who may be going into an adaptation blind.

The Ratchet & Clank movie, a production of Rainmaker and Blockade Entertainment, and part of the PlayStation Originals line, was released to theaters on April 29th, 2016. It can be seen as a film adaptation of the PlayStation 4 game Ratchet & Clank, which was released in North America merely two weeks prior. That game was meant to be a soft reboot of the franchise’s universe, a remake of the original game (released for the PlayStation 2 in 2002) with updated graphics and story, and incorporating gameplay mechanics of later titles in the re-reboot series. I still can’t compare with the game (aside from what I’ve learned from research, and that’s never as good as having played them firsthand), but I can try to see if the movie is good on its own.

The film begins on a space ship named the Deplanetizer, on which Chairman Drek (voiced by Paul Giamatti) addresses his troops. For the record, Chairman Drek looks like the bastard kid of Richard Nixon and Crazy Frog.

Left: Richard Nixon. Center: Drek. Right: Crazy Frog.
I am so sorry for making reminding everyone of both
Crazy Frog AND Richard Nixon.

And now that I’ve said it, you can’t unsee it. Drek is very controlling of his crew, and will unleash Vector, a large robot (voiced by Sylvester Stallone – now we know where a chunk of the budget went), on those who don’t listen to his orders. Chairman Drek orders the destruction of the nearly planet, and the Deplanetizer unleashes a powerful ray that strikes, fissures, and tears apart the targeted planet.

Talk about a wespon of massive destruction.

He's adorable and I want a plushie of him.

Cut to a desert area of Planet Veldin, nearby. Meet Ratchet, voiced (like in the games) by James Arnold Taylor. Ratchet is a lombax, one of the rare few in existence, if not the only one left. He looks like a cross between a cat and a fennec fox, with other feline traits thrown in. Ratchet lives with Grimroth, who is sort of a father figure to him. The lombax is also a sort of genius at creating gadgets of all kinds, one of which includes the Mag-Booster, a ridiculously high-power magnet (though he installed it on an old man's ship, when all the man wanted was his ejector seat repaired). Last but not least, he idolizes the Galactic Rangers, a group of galaxy-wide saviors who have stopped many threats, and wishes to join them someday.

He added all kinds of things to that guy's ship...
...yet forgot to repair what it was brought in for.

Hm. An orphan living in the desert, working for an older guy, with an affinity for creating machines, and about to join space-traveling heroes. I could’ve sworn I’ve seen that before. …I must be imagining things.

We see him training in front of the TV when a news report comes in about the newly-destroyed planet, along with an announcement that the Galactic Rangers are looking for a new recruit to stop the threat. Ratchet heads off to the Kyzil Plateau spaceport for the Ranger tryouts.

Can confirm; only three fingers on each hand.

You know, this is supposed to be the serious process in which a team of heroes will hire a new member in order to face high stakes, dangerous foes, and a risk of death. But they make a big lightshow of it like it's Veldin’s Got Talent! Or a Kanye concert. Either way, big egos abound. Captain Qwark, the leader of this group that shoots first and plans later, has the biggest ego of them all. Sometimes, with how fame-hungry he is, you’d forget that he genuinely helped save the galaxy a couple times. Also sometimes, with how humanlike he looks, you’d forget that he’s an alien with three-fingered hands. Yeah, that tripped me up the first time. Like I said, I’m not the most familiar with the franchise.

Even Cora and Brax seem to agree that Quark
is kind of an imbecile.

The Rangers (which also include Cora Veralux, a genius action girl voiced by Bella Thorne, and Brax Lectrus, an ex-wrestler turned hero voiced by Vincent Tong) tout their past exploits, like defeating the notoriously evil Doctor Nefarious, before giving hope that one, in the crowd gathered at the port, might join their ranks. Ratchet can feel it! It’s his moment! He goes in…

…and they turn him down due to his small stature and criminal record. So much for the hope.

Doctor Nefarious' appearance checks all the boxes on the
"How to Look Evil" checklist.

In the meantime, Chairman Drek confirms that he only needs to blow up two more planets to complete his grand plan, but the last one brought the attention of the Galactic Rangers. Drek has a plan that involves an army of robots created specifically to deal with the members of the heroic team – and has allied himself with Doctor Nefarious (voiced by Armin Shimerman) to build said army in a factory on planet Quartu. However, thunder strikes, causing a power outage and, among the mass-produced threatening robots, suddenly out comes a defective version. A robot voiced by David Kaye (just like in the games!) that actually looks… pretty adorable, honestly. The little guy’s programming glitches to recognize the Rangers as good guys that must be warned of the coming threat. The mini-robot flees in a ship, but not before it gets shot by Victor.

Robot on the loose!

The ship going "We will never make it - but hey, what are
you gonna do?" is one example of the humor in this film
that feels like it's been done before.

Okay, I feel it’s a good time to address this. The film tries to be clever by acknowledging some of its own tropes and indulging in self-awareness. I usually can’t complain about this, I tend to like self-awareness as comedy. But here? It’s a bit all over the place. It borderline feels like this movie was written by people who edit TVTropes and who feel the need to point out every trope they use. The film plays the Wilhelm scream? Someone yells “Wilhelm!” Clank’s escape ship won’t make it to its destination? The ship’s A.I. will snark about it. Speaking of snarky comments, at least once in the film, someone’s joke is followed by a “Burn!” The film has a recurring gag about Drek’s underlings texting behind his back at every chance they get, which in 2016? That already felt passé. The film’s comedy gets better as the story gets more focused, but early in the film, a lot of lampshade hanging goes for the low-hanging fruit. It’s not a huge issue, but it can be annoying.

"Just like new!"
"Technically speaking, I am still new."

"We'd better not miss out chance, or we'll have 300 very
angry robots coming after us!"

Ratchet, who had come back home earlier that day following his failure, sees the ship crash nearby. He rescues the little robot just in time and learns about the threat coming for the Rangers. For simplicity’s sake, he names the robot Clank, and agrees to take him to the galaxy’s saviors. The next day, they head there, only to see the Rangers’ HQ attacked by the mass-produced destroyer robots. They’re supposed to be able to get rid of the Rangers easily, yet the team seems to be doing just fine! Aside from being outnumbered, that is. Ratchet and Clank reprogram the lombax’s Mag-Booster, attached to his ship, so it'll attract the alloy the evil robots are made of, and sends them all crashing against the ship they came from.

Qwark's smile is so obviously fake.

I think I have a new waifu. ❤

In spite of his reluctance, Captain Qwark has to acknowledge Ratchet’s heroic rescue, and hires him to join the Galactic Rangers. However, due to the looming threat, Ratchet only has a few days to learn the ropes. Still, he and Clank get to meet the team, including the oft-forgotten Elaris. She is, hands-down, the best secondary character in the film; the brains (and much of the logical reasoning) of the team; an inventor; and she’s a gamer, too! Now if only the other Rangers showed her some respect. Clank stays with Elaris while Ratchet goes to learn how to use the arsenal made available to him as a newbie hero.

"Did I just summon this thing to my hand? That's
awesome! Who needs Jedi when you can do that?"

I mentioned earlier that the rebooted game included gameplay mechanics that were introduced after the original Ratchet & Clank. One of them includes a system that lets Ratchet swap between weapons as he pleases; the movie translates this in a suit that reads his thoughts and immediately teleports the desired weapon to his hand. It’s a stretch, sure, but props on the film for trying to explain a gameplay element in another medium. I also learned that Doctor Nefarious was not in the original 2002 game; he didn’t appear until the third. This film reworks him as a key component of the story. He also gets a somewhat sympathetic backstory as an ex-Galactic Ranger, who was bullied out of the position and turned evil, all because of idiots like Qwark… and Qwark… oh, did I mention Qwark? It doesn’t excuse Nefarious' later actions, but it gives the guy an interesting backstory.

What I WILL criticize, however, is how quickly Ratchet became a superstar by merely joining the heroic team. His face plastered on ads everywhere, fans rush to him for autographs, yet he’s been with the group for less than a day! It all happens way too quickly, and not even used for social commentary! It’s merely set-up to explain Qwark’s jealousy towards his newest recruit.

Gee, I wonder who's gonna become a bad guy
in this picture.

Speaking of, the heroes already have a plan: Blast in, destroy everything that moves, capture Drek. That’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for them. The Rangers are too trigger-happy to think of (or care about) anything more complex. They won’t even listen to Elaris bringing up the fact that a piece of each destroyed planet has disappeared. The villains also have a plan, suggested by Doctor Nefarious himself: Manipulate the big dummy Qwark into betraying his team and working for the bad guys, playing off his jealousy towards the new recruit. Take a guess on which plan is the more successful one.

Nefarious might not say it, but his expressions around
Drek and Victor are the silent form of "I am surrounded
by IDIOTS!"

"You can read that text?"
"Once you get used to the letters, it's not so bad."

At first, it looks good for the heroes; with Ratchet accompanied by Clank as his jetpack, they go into Drek Industries without even triggering an alarm. It can’t be that easy, come on. Sure enough, each one of them gets attacked by a horde of robots called Mr. Zurkons (the “Mr.” part feels very unnecessary), which splits them further apart. Ratchet, Clank and Cora end up in a control room where they read up on Drek’s plan to gather the best pieces of the planets he destroys with his massive Deplanetizer ship, and create his perfect planet with them.

As for Qwark? He finds Drek’s main room, but has his gun sliced apart by Victor before he can attempt an arrest. Drek proceeds to sweet-talk Qwark into working for him, even providing him with a team of PR professionals to work on his “image” while he betrays the Galactic Rangers and works for the bad guys. And of course, all by focusing on Qwark's jealousy for Ratchet. Damn it, PR ruins everything. They make all the promises: Excuses to justify, if not excuse his actions; a book, guest appearances on TV, a movie – no, a trilogy!

Is that… On the left, is that poster a freaking parody of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off??

Holy crap, it is!

Four guns pointed at the same robot? I only feel
comfortable when there are zero guns pointed at me!

The Galactic Rangers are, obviously, unaware of Qwark’s betrayal when they regroup. Drek and several of his allies have had time to flee in escape pods. The mission isn’t a complete failure, though; they have discovered Drek’s grand plan, and also managed to capture the Chairman’s robotic assistant, Zed (voiced by Andrew Cownden). Interrogated in the old “speak or we kill you” fashion, Zed admits that his boss’s next target is Novalis, a planet that’s currently inhabited by about 43 million people (all of the previous planets were uninhabited). 

All the plans are thus set into motion. The Galactic Rangers order the evacuation of Novalis and, somehow, are able to do it in a matter of a few hours. Yeah, I’m gonna call BS on that; it’s a little too convenient. Dunno if it was meant to be a joke or a genuine moment of awesomeness for the Rangers, but whatever – the plot requires it.

"Commence betrayal."

Qwark makes his first move as a traitor by deactivating the weapons system of the Rangers’ spaceships. This is accompanied by a little PlayStation 1 boot-up sound, because, props to the film, it likes to throw in little Easter Eggs here and there; earlier, when Clank tried to determine Ratchet’s species, he had Daxter and Sly Cooper in his database. The Captain then finds an excuse to get aboard the Deplanetizer alone.

One of the Easter Eggs I just mentioned.
Sorry Clank, I don't think Ratchet is... er... a Daxter.

With the Rangers now defenseless against his forces, Drek orders an attack on the heroes.

As for Nefarious, he has greater plans of his own: The heroes and Qwark are still unaware of his involvement, and he's playing Drek like a fiddle, gearing his forces towards a move that would cause the destruction of the entire solar system...

Sounds like a good time to end Part 1. Join me for Part 2!