Ron's Gone Wrong

There is a specific, prickly kind of loneliness that comes from being the only person in the room without the "thing." In the 90s, it was a Tamagotchi; in the 2000s, it was the right pair of low-rise jeans. In Ron’s Gone Wrong, that "thing" is a B*Bot—a pill-shaped, walking, talking, LED-faced device that is essentially an iPhone with legs and a personality designed specifically to be your best friend. I watched this movie while trying to peel a very stubborn, half-shredded sticker off my laptop, and that small, tactile frustration actually made me sympathize with our protagonist, Barney, more than I expected. We’re all just trying to make our tech work, aren’t we?

Friendship in the Age of the Algorithm

Released in late 2021, Ron’s Gone Wrong arrived at a strange crossroads. It was the debut feature from Locksmith Animation, caught in the messy gears of the Disney-Fox merger, and dumped into theaters just as the world was tentatively poking its head out from pandemic lockdowns. Because of that, it feels like a bit of a hidden gem—a film that has more on its mind than your average "boy and his robot" story.

The world-building here is sharp. Every kid has a BBot that helps them find friends, post videos, and maintain their social standing. It’s social media’s algorithmic nightmare dressed in a cute plastic shell. Barney, played with a perfect crackle of adolescent anxiety by Jack Dylan Grazer (IT, Shazam!*), is the social pariah because his family—his eccentric Bulgarian grandmother Donka (Olivia Colman) and his overworked dad Graham (Ed Helms)—can’t afford one. When they finally snag a "slightly damaged" bot from the back of a truck, we meet Ron.

Unlike the sleek, hyper-connected bots of his classmates, Ron (Zach Galifianakis) is a blank slate. He has no safety filters, no internet connection, and only about 5% of his code. He is, quite literally, a glorified juice box with a god complex.

The Glitch is the Feature, Not the Bug

The heart of the movie is the chemistry between Jack Dylan Grazer and Zach Galifianakis. Galifianakis delivers his lines with a staccato, literal-minded innocence that avoids the "annoying sidekick" trap. Ron doesn't know how to be a friend, so he tries to learn by physically "liking" things (slapping a sticker on them) or manually inviting people to Barney’s "circle" by dragging them into a literal chalk circle on the ground.

It’s genuinely funny, but it’s also a biting critique of how we’ve outsourced our social lives to companies that view "friendship" as a data point. The film’s villain isn't necessarily a monster, but a corporate suit named Andrew (Rob Delaney), who just wants to use the bots to track kids' every move. Rob Delaney plays the role with a terrifyingly upbeat "tech bro" energy that feels all too familiar in our current era of data mining and targeted ads.

The animation by Sarah Smith and Jean-Philippe Vine is bright and expressive, but it’s the character design of Ron that sticks. He’s lo-fi. He glitches. He’s a reminder that real connection is messy and unpredictable, not something that can be curated by an Apple-esque corporation. Olivia Colman’s Donka provides a wonderful, chaotic counterpoint to the tech-obsessed world, cooking goat lungs and bringing a tactile, old-world energy to a story about the digital future.

A Pandemic-Era "What If?"

It’s a shame Ron’s Gone Wrong didn’t get the massive marketing push of a Pixar or DreamWorks tentpole. It was originally slated to be a Warner Bros. release before moving to Fox, which was then swallowed by Disney. It’s essentially the "orphaned" movie of 2021. Because of this, it lacks the "instant classic" branding, but in many ways, that makes it a more rewarding watch. It feels like a discovery.

One bit of trivia I found fascinating: the B*Bot designs were reportedly inspired by a mix of minimalist tech like the original iMac and the simple, rounded shapes of vinyl toys. The filmmakers wanted them to look like something a kid would desperately want to own, but also something that could easily turn into a creepy surveillance tool. It’s that dual nature that makes the sci-fi element work—it’s speculative, but it’s only about five minutes away from our actual reality.

The film does lean into some familiar "misunderstood kid" tropes, and the third act gets a little chaotic with a break-in at the tech headquarters, but it never loses sight of the central question: Can a piece of plastic really care about you? Or, more importantly, can you care about it when it isn't giving you what the algorithm promised?

Ron’s Gone Wrong is a surprisingly thoughtful piece of contemporary sci-fi that happens to be disguised as a zany family comedy. It captures the frantic, dopamine-seeking energy of the 2020s without being condescending to the kids who live in it. It’s a movie that understands that being "connected" and having a friend are two very different things. If you missed this one during its quiet theatrical run or its shuffle onto streaming platforms, it’s well worth the 107 minutes of your time—just maybe put your own "B*Bot" on silent before you start.