Heh, man has it been a while since I have used this blog.
I know, I know, you're looking at the title and thinking... A movie?
Yes well, I have just seen this one and I figured I needed to drop my 2 cents in to the mix.
Ratchet and Clank, the beloved video game series. I, class myself as a fan of this series. I had "Ratchet and Clank: Tools Of Destruction" in 2011, and it was a big part of that year in my life. I LOVED it. For one main reason though, Ratchet himself. I don't have it any more, my PS3 broke a long time ago, and I never did get to finish the game... Recently, with the revival of this series with the new game and movie, my love for this has been re-found. I dived a bit too deep in to the fandom a week before the release of the video game in my country, and have waited an extra 2 weeks to be able to see the film.
And I would like to start off by saying I was completely hyped to no end for this film. I felt like I waited so long and when the time came I was actually dancing around the cinema foyer... Yeah. Now, I'm sure you are aware of this mixed bag of reception this one has gotten, critics hated it, fans loved it and a lot of people are on the fence about it. I personally really enjoyed it, the rest of my family... A little less so.
Let me just get this fact out of the way: I found myself constantly saying "awwww" at every single little thing that Ratchet did. I really have a soft spot for this Lombax, really. He is beautifully designed in this film as well, as with most of the film itself when I think about it. It's not really much on Big Hero 6's San Fransokyo, which gave me a homely feel, but it's still absolutely stunning.
My biggest gripe with this movie... The passing and how long it was. I really wish it was longer, like, so badly wished it was longer... It felt kinda rushed because of this, the passing being a bit... Off. I wish we got more time to see the relationship between Ratchet and Clank develop more as well... I found it rather hard to believe that they were just suddenly inseparable best mates when... There was not a lot of foundation to their friendship other than what they share in common... Being abandoned at infancy. When I compare them to the relationship of Hiro and Baymax... They're rather similar. Both were thrown in together, and make a... Good team. They warm up to each other, even to the point of one willing to save the other... But Ratchet didn't seem half as upset as I would have expected him too when he split ways from the rangers... Then again, there was little to no friendship for the duo, so they had to make something believable....
Come to think of it, this movie reminds me a lot of Big Hero 6. We have the lead, with a big dream (Ratchet wanting to be a ranger, Hiro wanting to attend SFIT) and the robot "sidekick", who... Doesn't do too much. But the robot and the lead become inseparable from one another. And the lead is rather sad to be parted from their robot buddy, and then well relived to have them back again at the end. Then you have the side characters, the Galactic Rangers and the rest of the Big Hero 6. They're... Underdeveloped and underutilised. But, the biggest difference here is that the rest of the Big Hero 6 actually DO SOMETHING compared to the rest of the rangers. At least in the Big Hero 6, they have distinguishable characters and each are very different from one another, and equally as memorable. With the rangers... The only one who I can remember having any personality is Elaris. Cora and Brax are far too similar to one another, and are honestly really boring as characters. We don't get much in ways of backstory for those two and that... Is a huge downfall. Plus, they hardly do anything! The only one who made any contribution was Elaris, the other two were just kinda there. And sure they helped execute the plan, but they could have been completely left out and nothing would have been missing from the story. And here is the reason why I have yet to count Qwark as a ranger... He isn't. He betrayed them. In both movies, we have someone who the heroes think is their ally, who turns out to be the/a villain (Qwark, Yokai/Callaghan), and then we have the lead attempt to reason with said villain. One case works the other... meh. But, Qwark had no real motivation to betray the rangers. Sure, jealousy is one of the things that forges a villain, but here it was done... Stupidly. I suppose it's because Qwark is our comical character... But it just makes me hate him. I really am not a fan of Qwark, at all. I don't like his vanity, I don't like that his stealing Ratchet's spotlight nope, nope, nope. I don't like him at all. And here is another difference, Yokai is a likeable villain. You can sympathise with him, and even the heroes sympathise with him. Qwark... deserves to be locked up. And I'm surprised Ratchet was able to forgive him, I mean he tried to kill him! He tried to suck you and your friend in to a tornado portal thing! ... And yet you can forgive him? ... If there is one thing that Ratchet needs to learn it is that Qwark does not learn, and will continue for be... vain. and let his celebrity status cloud his better judgement.
OK, I think I am done complaining, Imma move on to the great bits and what made this movie a good one for me.
I've already talked about set design and character design and the personalities of the characters. But here, can I just talk about Ratchet's growth as a character? He starts out reckless and ... "carefree", and to a certain extent still kinda is, but he knows his bounds and sticks to his responsibilities at the end. It's not that he doesn't want to go and do all the fun missions with the rangers, hell no, in fact he would probably prefer that. But he chose to stay and help Grim because it's his responsibility, he promised Grim he would stay to help at the garage and that's exactly what he did. To go from someone who would just ditch without saying a word and then become someone who will stick around even though they could be doing better things is, a great step for Ratchet. I also noticed how much he cares, and how he learns from not letting Elaris speak. For all we know, if Ratchet and Clank hadn't had stepped in to make Elaris be heard a little louder, she would have ended up the same way as Nefarious, bitter and... Evil. I feel like I'm saying Elaris a lot. Haha, I think she might be one of my favourite characters, she's just great and puts up with a lot from the rangers, and could do with a lot more recognition for her work. I'm glad that Ratchet was the one to speak up and say that they should listen to her.
Now, when Ratchet failed to save Novalis... In the game when we got to this point I really wanted to get a longer more drawn out scene where we explore his feelings... We got just that, and it wasn't a whole lot longer, but I've already talked about the passing and timing issues. But it was long enough to hit me in the feels. Hah, I'm not the type to cry or anything like that, but when he was taking down his rangers posters and just lying on his bed, moping... It really hit me. He so badly wanted to succeed and when he failed... Well, when you lose an entire planet, what are you supposed to feel? Ratchet felt truly responsible for the failure, and he just couldn't face going back... How can you go back after that?? Clank was a voice of reason, though I kinda found what he had to say a little bit... Odd? And it wasn't really what Clank had to say that motivated Ratchet to go back, it was more the fact that the Rangers just decided to turn up. As I've said before though, I have a soft spot for the Lombax, and this film was always going to be a hit with me anyway. I spent too long waiting and getting excited and hyped about this to not enjoy it. (Plus I'm super inspired by it and I just really badly want to hug Ratchet...)
I digress, but there is just one more thing that I want to touch on for good points. The humour. It's perfectly placed, and adds an extra sense of light heartedness to the film. OK, how light hearted can you get when your main character is a cat thing, but it wasn't all completely serious. The one liners were funny... Just I really enjoyed the humour myself. It made the film all the more worth it, and it just made me lol.... Admittedly I couldn't really shut up, finding myself going "aww" every 5 freaking seconds. But, besides the point... It was great.
And that's what I have to say about the film as a whole, it was great and I actually REALLY want to see it again. (There wasn't another showing today though, it was only on twice, once in the morning and again in the afternoon.... ._.)
One last thing, the parallels between Ratchet and Hiro are just huge. I have went in to a few of them, but there are some more that come to mind as an afterthought, they both failed their tasks (Hiro let anger take over and Callaghan escaped, Ratchet didn't save Novalis) and they both grew as characters because of this. (Baymax showed Hiro the footage of Tadashi, re-inspiring him, Grim told Ratchet that heroes don't have to do big things, just the right ones). And this whole "heroes don't have to do big things, just the right ones" is a really good moral for the story, and again reminds me of Big Hero 6.
I could go on for a lot longer, but overall, despite my obvious complaints, this film was great and man do I really want to see it again.
(I reckon I may have to do a separate bit for the rest of the parallels between this and BH6.)
No comments:
Post a Comment