

Director: Kevin Munroe, Jericca Cleland; Starring: James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, Jim Ward, Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Rosario Dawson, Bella Thorne, Sylvester Stallone (voices). U cert, 94 mins.

In a golden period for both animation and children’s filmmaking, here is a head-splitting reminder of just how bad those two things can get.

Ratchet and Clank has been spun off from a long-running PlayStation franchise which has been credited with bringing the visual richness and invention of great CGI cartoons to the video game realm. Let’s just say the benefits of this particular cultural exchange run in one direction only: the film is an hour and a half of loathsome gargoyles yelling gibberish at each other over deafening laser fire, apparently pieced together with all the discernment and care of a fox dragging a torn bin bag around a garden.