《瑞奇与叮当》

    This film is a spinoff* from the successful game franchise of the same name.

    In the film’s crushingly predictable origin story, big-eared, orange-furred “cat thingy” Ratchet (James Arnold Taylor) teams up with oddball robot Clank (David Kaye). Helped and opposed* by many brightly colored secondary characters, the titular duo storm into battle to save various planets from destruction*. The supporting cast spans a moral spectrum*, with John Goodman-voiced father figure Grimroth at one end giving advice to Ratchet and Armin Shimerman’s evil Dr. Nefarious at the other end of the scale.

    Somewhere in between there’s Jim Ward’s Captain Qwark, easily corrupted by evil dictator Drek (Paul Giamatti).

    Nefarious, with his huge swollen head and malnourished* body, looks like the hero from “Megamind” and the aliens from “Mars Attacks!”

    The screenplay, written by T.J. Fixman, Gerry Swallow and director Kevin Munroe, puts in sarcasm* and old jokes here and there.

    Except for some basic introductions and backstories, the screenplay stages a tournament of fights leading to the big showdown*, while the game-like graphics depict the variety of strange weapons in the characters’ arsenal*. (The “sheepinator” is particularly funny, although even the elementary-school kids recognized the joke is a rip-off of the “-inator” gizmos Doofenshmirtz concocts on “Phineas and Ferb.”)

    Although the snark* and smart female characters (voiced by Bella Thorne and Rosario Dawson) lend the film a 2016 flavor, in the end it feels very much like a throwback to the mid-1990s, that peaceful age when “synergy*” was the big industry buzzword and adaptations of computer games were popular.

    “Super Mario Bros.,” “Mortal Kombat,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” — they all rolled off the production line like jewel-cased discs. A product of the digital age where everything is just code that can be cut and pasted, “Ratchet & Clank” feels even less solid than those films. (SD-Agencies)