Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Ron's Gone Wrong 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 10, 2021

What is a friend, and what is friendship? In the digital world they can mean two entirely different things. Today, a "friend" can be someone who clicks a "thumbs up: icon or an "add as friend" button, granting them access to a digital profile full of likes and dislikes and opinions and so on and so forth: a digital footprint. But is that also "friendship?" Can a real, soulful, purposeful friendship exist based solely on a series of profile similarities, or is there something more organic, some connection beyond the digital realm that makes a real friend and a real friendship? Just a few years ago talking about degrees of digital friends and what "friendship" actually meant would have been crazy talk, but here is it, 2021, and Ron's Gone Wrong is asking these very questions about the shifting perspective of friends and friendship in the 21st century technological world.

A futuristic tech conglomerate known as “Bubble” has just released its new new Bubble Bot, the ultimate robotic friendship companion that “pairs” to its user by scanning the user’s total online profile and customizing the friendship experience to the user’s digital preference. It’s “your best friend out of the box” and it’s a hit. Soon, they are everywhere. Every school-aged child has one and they become fully integrated into everyday life. But there’s still one person who doesn’t have one: Barney (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer), a middle schooler who not only does not have a B-Bot, he doesn’t have any flesh and blood fiends, either. He’s an outcast at school, he fears recess when the kids socialize with one another and their ‘bots, and he’s left sitting alone to only further ostracize him from society. He desperately wants a B*Bot, but his widower father (voiced by Ed Helms) will not hear of it. But when his father finally realizes that Barney’s social life is suffering for lack of a B*Bot, he attempts to get one, but the store is closed and they’re sold out, anyway. He finds a scratch and dent model he buys off the books and presents to his son for his birthday. Barney is of course overjoyed, but he quickly learns that his B*Bot (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) is malfunctioning. He tries to exchange it for a new model but because it was purchased illegally, it’ll have to be destroyed. Fearful of losing the only hope he has ever had at friendship, Barney risks everything to run away with his B*Bot, called Ron. Can the two bond, even as neither one of them has any real clue how to do so?

The film is very balanced and thoughtful, building a legitimate story about what it means to be human in a supposedly connected but increasingly distant 21st century world. Barney and Ron are not an odd couple pairing but rather kindred spirits, as it were and as far as that is possible to connect with a digital "thing." Both are glitchy and malfunctioning in some way, Barney because he's been battered by life (his mother died when he was young and his father doesn't quite know how to balance his relationship with his son to his work life) and Ron because he's been battered by an accidental fall off the back of a truck. Both of them learn on the fly, not relying on what should be innate programming but rather through life experience together. And isn't that how friendship is supposed to be forged? It's doing life together, learning not from a set of preexisting key words and web histories but getting to know another person from the inside out, not from the outside in. The film is very thoughtful and expressive, keyed in on what it means to be a human, and a friend, in the digital era.

The characters are well defined and voiced. The digital artistry brings real, tangible, expressive people to the screen and the interaction with the B*Bots, which looks like a mix of Baymax from Big Hero 6 with that creepy Moxie educational robot. But in the film B*Bots take on the personality of their users, so like every human is unique, so too is every B*Bot unique, and one of the film's highlights is soaking in all of the personalized details across the army of robots that appear on the screen any time there's a crowd of people. The digital artists and creative minds behind the film certainly went to town and let their imaginations run wild with the possibilities, but the film remains grounded in that core exploration of the human condition, which is does very well, supported by one of the best looking digitally animated films of the past few years.

Ron's Gone Wrong 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc.

Disney brings Ron's Gone Wrong to the UHD format with a sparkling 2160p/HDR UHD presentation. The movie looks amazing but it's still not a major step forward from the the companion an concurrently released Blu-ray. Texturally, the images are fairly close to one another. The UHD adds a little fine point intimacy to the plastic robot shell, human character hairs and faces and clothes, and various natural environments (much of the latter parts of the film take place in a wooded area) as well as in bedrooms and school recess areas. The sharp-eyed viewer will appreciate the minor improvements but those watching on Blu-ray are not missing a while lot at the higher resolution. On the flip side, the HDR color grading adds the usual layers of depth and color brilliance to the proceedings. Colors here are certainly deeper, with more robust output and a little less brightness but a lot more vividness. The B*Bot white is notably improved, more nuanced, and crisper and more luminous from the inside with the light reflections on the knitted cap and other areas looking more natural and evenly dispersed. Natural greens, bold colors around the school, and of course the personalized and very colorful B*Bots seen frequently throughout the film, especially at the school playground, pop with more impressive punch than the Blu-ray can provide. Blacks are deeper and more honest, too. As with the Blu-ray, there are no source or encode issues to stand in the way of what is a terrific image from Disney.

Ron's Gone Wrong 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For its UHD release, Disney presents Ron's Gone Wrong with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack (the Blu-ray includes a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack). There's not a serious shift in dynamics or stage presence with the Atmos track; this one is not teeming with added overhead content and neither is it significantly fuller or more robust than the 7.1 counterpart. It's a little light but there's enough of a low end weight to keep the track from sounding too thin. It's not super aggressive at reference volume, either. It is fully engaging in terms of surround usage, making sure to engage all of the channels with well defined and seamlessly integrated surround delight, but again this one is more about full immersion rather than discrete implementation. Clarity to music is excellent, as is the definition to various sound effects throughout the movie. Dialogue is clear and naturally positioned in the front center channel. It is also well prioritized for the duration.

Ron's Gone Wrong 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no extras on the UHD disc, but the bundled Blu-ray incudes the following. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.

• A Boy and His B*Bot: When Jack Met Zach (1080p, 3:51): Actors Jack Dylan Grazer and Zach Galifianakis talk up technology, the story, and the characters they voice, as well as a few other odds and ends.
• Making Ron Right (1080p, 16:23): A longer piece exploring story elements, social commentary, voice work and cast camaraderie, tales from the set, a few technical details, and more.
• Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:02).

Ron's Gone Wrong 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ron's Gone Wrong does a lot right in how it communicates the story of the human condition in the digital era. It's moving, funny, well voiced, and expertly animated: a solid film all around. Disney's UHD delivers tip-top video, acceptable-to-good audio, and a couple of extras. Recommended.