Ratchet And Clank

A nuts and bolts animation

Have you played Insomniac’s masterful Ratchet And Clank re-imagining on PS4? Then you’ve seen the movie. Bits of it anyway. Several of the game’s cutscenes were lifted directly from the film, and though these sequences work well when they’re bookending Ratchet’s wacky run-andgun-play, watching this feature length animated ‘toon is often akin to sitting through a 90-minute cutscene. Which it sort of is.

That’s because the two were made simultaneously, with Insomniac and movie studio Rainmaker Entertainment collaborating on both design and script work. The result is a movie that couldn’t be more faithful to the series, with Ratchet and his robotic BFF Clank enlisting in the Galactic Rangers before embarking on a mission to take down Chairman Drek and Dr Nefarious. All that’s missing is a hoverboard race.

As spellbindingly beautiful as it looks on PS4, however, Ratchet on the telly simply can’t compare with the likes of Pixar, while the humour doesn’t hold up as well in long form either. That’s not to Edgar Wright and Guillermo del Toro were previously attached to a live action adaptation. say it isn’t fun – Qwark is just as idiotically entertaining here as always, while there are dozens of Easter eggs to look out for, such as typically familiar weaponry. The starry voice cast (Sylvester Stallone, Paul Giamatti, Rosario Dawson, John Goodman), meanwhile, are all good fun in supporting roles alongside returning Ratchet And Clank regulars James Arnold Taylor and David Kaye.

Peculiarly, it isn’t coming out on Blu-ray in the UK, meaning you’ll have to put up with DVD fuzz-o-vision or download it in HD via PlayStation Store. It’s far from bad, but Ratchet is definitely best experienced pad in hand. Jordan Farley