Ron’s Gone Wrong
Year: 2021
Rating: PG
Length: 107 minutes / 1.78 hours
Let’s face it: social media is a challenge for parents trying to raise kids in an increasingly tech-savvy world. Adults all know the dangers of it because we were the test subjects. Now it’s exposing our children to the addicting and potentially dangerous concept of trying to “go viral” by any means possible. While documentaries like The Social Dilemma (2020) reveal how these dark systems work, there aren’t many movies directed toward kids that show these dangers in a way they can understand. Ron’s Gone Wrong (2021) attempts to fill this gap.
The problem with how this movie goes about teaching its lesson is that the premise requires a large amount of suspension of disbelief. In this universe, parents are completely oblivious to the dangers of giving their children AI robots who act as their gateway into social media via pranking videos or TicTok beauty clips that get tons of likes. Sure, there are “safety measures” in place, but there honestly should have been loads more restrictions considering the negative consequences. I appreciate how these facades are stripped back at the end of the second act, even if they return to the status quo at the end of the movie.
While the animation here isn’t anything to write home about, it conveys what it needs to for the target audience (also by parodying Apple pretty hard). Hopefully, parents should watch this movie with their kids so they can start a discussion about social media and how it isn’t necessary to have a social life. It’s not a perfect representation of some of the more nefarious dangers, but it touches enough on FOMO, cyberbullying, and like-fueled dopamine hits to give parents the opening they need with their kids.
An OK movie to start a conversation about social media with kids, I give Ron’s Gone Wrong 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
