Ron’s Gone Wrong asks the all-important question: What if Baymax was an aggravating dick? Happily, this movie answers that question: It’d be teeth-gratingly annoying and make me physically ill. Yay.

Ron’s Gone Wrong is about a megacorporation that releases personalized robot buddies / social media hubs that will be your best friend and help you find new friends. The movie’s protagonist is a kid who doesn’t get one of these new bots… until his dad buys a damaged one that can’t connect to the server and update his friend code. Which makes him excessively annoying… but allegedly also heart-warming?

Hating this movie seems unfair. I really think the movie means well and hating on it is like kicking a balloon animal. But I had such a strong, visceral, unreasonably hate-filled reaction to Ron the robot that I just couldn’t enjoy much of the movie. I felt physically annoyed and a little ill from my dislike and the fact I had to sit in that damn chair for another hour and twenty minutes until the credits rolled.

Is this due to Zack Galifianakis doing the voice of an annoying robot? I think it was… though the movie’s plotting and messages didn’t help make that ‘bot any more palatable. I hated it. In fact, there’s a scene about thirty minutes in where the corporate overlords are going to smash the bot… and I thought to myself, “Good. Probably for the best”.

Not a good sign for your heart-warming tale of friendship. It’s like if ET was just a giant asshole.

I get enjoying this movie if you didn’t have the strong negative reaction to the robot character. I suspect there’s a lot to like about this otherwise fairly harmless film. A good 3 out of 5 stars seems about right. But not for this impractically grumpy jerk.

Score: 62