Review: Ron’s Gone Wrong Has Its Wires Crossed About A.I. Technology

The film celebrates individuality even as it suggests that everyone needs their own A.I. tech to validate everything they like and think.

Ron’s Gone Wrong
Photo: 20th Century Studios

From Big Hero 6 to The Mitchells vs. the Machines, children’s films are increasingly grappling with the exponential rise of A.I. technology. Where those, and other similar films, take clear stands on the role that technology can and should play in the social lives of kids, Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine, and Octavio E. Rodriguez’s Ron’s Gone Wrong hedges its bets, chiding children and grown-ups alike for their overreliance on and emotional attachment to algorithmic-based technology, while simultaneously seeing a form of that technology as a panacea to quell the social ineptitude of today’s anxiety-ridden youth.

This running contradiction plays itself out in the adventures of an awkward middle-schooler named Barney (Jack Dylan Grazer), a social outcast whose nerdy, inattentive father (Ed Helms) and extremely Eastern European grandmother (Olivia Colman) only make things harder on the young lad. The last kid in his school without a B-bot—an ovular robot that promises to become your best friend by downloading every bit of information it can find on your social media accounts—Barney is, much to his chagrin, left offline in the social scene at school.

Ron’s Gone Wrong makes a conspicuous point of showing the potential dangers of this tech, particularly through Savannah (Kylie Cantrall), an influencer who has a camera perpetually pointed in her direction, and Rich (Ricardo Hurtado), a bully who gains followers by pulling off Jackass-style stunts. Both were friends with Barney just a few years prior until they drifted apart as their interests changed. That tends to happen with friendships forged in early childhood, but the film oddly places the blame on tech for why this trio went their separate ways. It also couldn’t foreshadow their potential reconciliation any harder if it tried.

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Barney finally gets his in with the cool kids when his father caves and buys him a B-bot, albeit a discounted one that’s less than fully functional. Early scenes between the robot, Ron (Zach Galifianakis), and Barney are among the film’s most successful, as the former’s malfunctions neatly mirror the social anxieties and clumsiness of the latter. Particularly amusing is Ron’s insistence on calling his owner Absalom, as he only has access to names beginning with the letter A, and his tendency to perform online tasks such as likes and friend requests in the real world. There’s also some clever slapstick—courtesy of Ron’s lack of parental controls, thus allowing him to be violent—to remind us of the dangers of A.I. run amok.

The film’s messaging, though, becomes increasingly muddled as Barney and Ron start to bond, and the B-bot creates a widespread panic, allowing for Bubble, the company that manufactures the robots, to spy on all its users in order to track down the rogue Ron. The filmmakers pin all of this nefarious monitoring on Bubble’s second-in-command, Andrew (Rob Delaney), who appears to be the only person in the company aware that the robots were a data-mining ploy that could be used to market kids the things that they already want. Meanwhile, Bubble’s young, hip CEO, Marc (Justice Smith), exists to convince us that tomorrow’s tech bros definitely have our back, as he really did invent the B-bot to help kids make friends.

But what kind of friends are the B-bots anyway? The functional ones clearly pander to their owners’ predilections, but Ron, who can’t connect to the internet, must learn about Barney simply by watching and listening to him. And yet, he still ultimately exists only to be something of a robotic clone of Barney, taking on all his interests rather than expanding his horizons in any meaningful way. The film’s final act wants to draw a sharp line in the sand between Ron and the rest of the B-bots, suggesting that the real problem with the latter is their data-mining capability, not the kids’ 24-7 attachment to technology.

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The film’s ending envisions a future not where kids simply reconnect with one another, but where all newly manufactured B-bots, while quirky and unpredictable like Ron, are not at all violent and aren’t used for nefarious purposes. It’s a future where friendship still remains wholly reliant on an expensive, heavily marketed tech product. And while arguing that every kid should be more comfortable just being themselves, Ron’s Gone Wrong also suggests that everyone needs their own Ron to validate everything they like and think. The film acknowledges the perils of data-mining but not the implications of addressing children’s lack of connection to others solely via a technology that kowtows to them.

Score: 
 Cast: Jack Dylan Grazer, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Olivia Colman, Rob Delaney, Justice Smith, Kylie Cantrall, Ricardo Hurtado, Cullen McCarthy, Ava Morse  Director: Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine, Octavio E. Rodriguez  Screenwriter: Peter Baynham, Sarah Smith  Distributor: 20th Century Studios  Running Time: 106 min  Rating: PG  Year: 2021  Buy: Video

Derek Smith

Derek Smith's writing has appeared in Tiny Mix Tapes, Apollo Guide, and Cinematic Reflections.

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