Honestly, it’s still kinda weird to think about.
Back in 2016, we were right in the middle of this supposed "renaissance" of video game adaptations, and the Ratchet & Clank film was supposed to be the gold standard. It had everything going for it. You had the original voice cast—James Arnold Taylor and David Kaye—returning to play the titular duo. You had Rainmaker Entertainment and PlayStation Originals working together. Even the game’s lead writer, TJ Fixman, was involved in the screenplay. It felt like a sure thing.
But then it actually came out.
The movie ended up being a strange, polished, yet ultimately hollow experience that somehow felt less "cinematic" than the games it was based on. It’s a fascinating case study in how following the source material too closely—or perhaps just the wrong parts of it—can lead to a project that feels more like a 90-minute commercial than a living, breathing movie. If you look at the box office numbers, it only clawed in about $13 million worldwide against a $20 million budget. That's a gut punch for a franchise that basically defined the PlayStation 2 and 3 eras.
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The weird identity crisis of the Ratchet & Clank film
The biggest issue with the Ratchet & Clank film is that it didn't really know who it was for. If you were a die-hard fan who grew up with the 2002 original on PS2, you probably noticed some pretty jarring changes. The "edge" was gone.
In the original game, Ratchet was kind of a jerk. He was a cynical, grease-monkey mechanic who only helped Clank because he wanted to get off his backwater planet. He wasn't some wide-eyed dreamer looking to join the Galactic Rangers. He was a guy with a wrench and an attitude. Their friendship was earned through bickering and mutual survival.
The movie threw that out.
Instead, we got a "chosen one" narrative where Ratchet is a lovable underdog who just wants to do good. It felt safe. Too safe. It took a franchise known for its biting satire of consumerism and corporate greed and turned it into a standard, by-the-numbers origin story that felt like it belonged in the early 2000s bargain bin of animation, despite the high-quality rendering.
Why the "Game-to-Movie-to-Game" pipeline failed
The timing was also bizarre. Sony released a "reimagined" version of the first game on PS4 at the same time as the movie. This created a weird feedback loop. The game used cutscenes from the movie, and the movie felt like it was trying to justify the existence of the game.
- The 2016 game was a massive hit. It’s arguably one of the best-selling titles in the series.
- The movie was a critical and commercial flop.
It’s a rare instance where the tie-in product actually overshadowed the "main" event. Fans preferred playing the story rather than watching a truncated, less funny version of it on a big screen. When you're playing, the "safeness" of the story matters less because the mechanics—the shooting, the upgrading, the chaotic sheep-transforming rays—are doing the heavy lifting. In a theater, you're just left with a script that feels like it was written by a committee trying not to offend anyone.
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The celebrity voice acting trap
We have to talk about the cast. While it was a huge win to keep Taylor and Kaye as Ratchet and Clank, the producers felt the need to pepper in "big names" to sell tickets.
Paul Giamatti as Chairman Drek.
John Goodman as Grimroth.
Sylvester Stallone as Victor Von Ion.
Rosario Dawson as Elaris.
On paper, that's a stacked lineup. In reality? It created a weird tonal rift. You had these legendary voice actors who knew these characters inside and out performing alongside Hollywood A-listers who, frankly, sounded like they were reading lines in a booth for a paycheck. Giamatti is always great, but his Drek lacked the menacing, corporate slimeball energy of the original 2002 version. Stallone’s character was a generic robot henchman who felt like he walked in from a different movie entirely.
It’s a classic example of "Star Power" vs. "Character Fit." Modern hits like The Super Mario Bros. Movie managed to balance this a bit better by leaning into the celebrity personas, but the Ratchet & Clank film felt like it was hiding its heart behind a wall of famous names that the target audience—kids—didn't even really care about.
Technical brilliance vs. creative spark
Visually, the movie looks great. Rainmaker did a solid job of translating the aesthetic of the games into a feature-film format. The planets are vibrant. The character models are expressive. The weapons look heavy and dangerous.
But there’s no soul in the pacing.
The film rushes through major plot points. We go from Ratchet being a lonely mechanic to him being a galactic hero in what feels like fifteen minutes. There’s no room for the world to breathe. The humor, which was always the secret sauce of the Insomniac games, felt watered down. The games used to make fun of "The Man." The movie felt like it was "The Man."
What we can learn from the Ratchet & Clank film today
Looking back from 2026, the Ratchet & Clank film serves as a warning. It’s the bridge between the "bad" era of game movies (like the 90s Street Fighter) and the "prestige" era we’re in now with The Last of Us or Arcane.
It proved that you can't just copy-paste a game’s aesthetic and expect a movie to work. You need a reason for the story to exist in a non-interactive format. The film tried to be a "re-telling," but in doing so, it stripped away the personality that made people love the duo in the first place. It lacked the bite. It lacked the weirdness. It lacked the sense of adventure that comes from exploration.
If you’re a fan of the series, the movie is worth a watch once just to see the characters on a big scale, but it’s definitely not the definitive version of their story. Not by a long shot.
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Moving forward with the franchise
If you actually want to experience the "real" Ratchet and Clank, skip the movie and play Rift Apart on PS5. It manages to do everything the movie failed at: it tells a high-stakes, emotional story with incredible cinematic flair, but it keeps the heart and the snark intact.
For those still interested in the cinematic history of the series, here is how you should actually approach this era of the lore:
- Watch the cutscenes from the 2002 original game on YouTube first. This gives you the context of who these characters were meant to be—blue-collar guys in over their heads.
- Treat the 2016 film as a "propaganda movie" made by Captain Qwark. If you view the film through the lens of Qwark telling his own biased, sanitized version of history, it actually becomes much more tolerable and even fits into the meta-humor of the universe.
- Compare the character arc of Drek in the movie versus the game. It’s a masterclass in how simplifying a villain for a "family audience" can often make them less interesting.
- Focus on the background details. The animators snuck in plenty of Easter eggs for long-time fans (like the Plumber) that are easily missed on a first watch.
The Ratchet & Clank film might not have been the breakout hit Sony wanted, but it paved the way for them to understand that their IP deserves better than "just okay" adaptations. It was a necessary failure that eventually led to the much more thoughtful approach we see in PlayStation Productions today.