Movie review: ‘Ratchet & Clank’ proves to be too much

A kid. Of, oh, maybe 7 or so. Fueled on not one, but two — count ’em, two — super-hyper-mega-monstro-giga sodas. Available at the concession stand now!

Screeching, screaming, bouncing off walls.

There’s a word for a kid in this condition: Insufferable.

“Ratchet & Clank” is the animated movie equivalent of that kid.

Screeching, screaming, bouncing around the galaxy.

Insufferable.

And seemingly interminable.

The movie came from a video game with the same title.

It should have stayed where it was.

It’s a story set in space. Where all you can hear is the screaming. And screeching.

The screaming of all characters hyperventilating their lines. The screeching of not one, but two nasty villains yowling about their nefarious plans to blast a bunch of planets into oblivion. And wouldn’t you know it? One of those villains is actually named Nefarious.

Cackling, they order planets blown to bits. Howling, they command armies of robot minions to destroy — make that: Destroy! — our heroes.

Those would be the two creatures of the title: a good-hearted small alien whozis with large ears. That’s Ratchet (voiced by James Arnold Taylor ). He’s a spaceship mechanic; get it? His partner is a sawed-off, soft-spoken brainy robot named Clank. (voiced by David Kaye; both of whom also voice these characters in the video game).

Ratchet aspires to join the Galactic Rangers, a worlds-saving outfit headed up by a vainglorious blowhard named Qwark (Jim Ward), who is all chin (of the cleft variety) and hulking torso (of the wedge variety). Supplying the voices of supporting characters are John Goodman and Paul Giamatti.

As the forces of good and the forces of nastiness do their crash-bang-shriek thing, one can’t help but notice that one of the villains sports an ugly little ponytail like that of a too-similar bad guy in January’s odious animated “Norm of the North,” and that the spaceships and alien cities on view bear an uncanny resemblance to those seen in “The Phantom Menace.” These are not the sorts of neighborhoods in which a picture should choose to play.

At the end, the exertions entailed by all that worlds-saving leaves two of the good guys doubled over doing the technicolor yawn. Or if that’s too obscure, how about “talking to Ralph on the great porcelain throne” although no toilets are in sight. After which, one shakily wails, “Make it stop!”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 10:05 AM with the headline "Movie review: ‘Ratchet & Clank’ proves to be too much."