The family-friendship storyline is smartly interlaced with the sci-fi genre as you're equally drawn from the brimming beginning to a delectable ending. With the eclectic directing combo of Sarah Smith and Jean-Phillippe Vine, writers Sarah and Peter Baynham conduct a delightful watch that is as insightful as it's entertaining. Using humour in all its crisp reliability, Ron's Gone Wrong takes masterful 'subtle' digs at giant tech companies and their manipulative ideology which is making things easier but on their accord and benefit.

While not neglecting the fact that social media is the present as well as the future, it instead adapts the storyline to make people understand how much human connection is equally important whilst not blatantly negating technology and its infinite, swift advances. There's also the juxtaposition of not just the cons but the pros of social media, too, which is well balanced out. While on the outside, they may seem all hunky-dory, we witness how they too have so much in common with Barney, in terms of being lonely and the neverending need to be accepted. We see that not just through Barney, but his estranged best friends cum classmates Savannah Meades (Kylie Cantrall), an influencer documenting her entire life to spice up the followers' count and likes from thousands to millions, Rich Belcher (Ricardo Hurtado), a resident bully who pranks people to become famous, (Cullen McCarthy), a video game junkie and Ava (Ava Morse), a science geek. There's the constant moral question of how much social media influences kids (and even adults!). Facebook's recent controversy looming around the ill effects on children couldn't have helped time Ron's Gone Wrong's release better. Basically, Ron is the opposite of what a B-bot is supposed to be and instead, Barney has to start from square one to make a literal friend out of his robot sidekick, teaching him the ins and outs.ДЄs Barney and Ron get to know one another, the two eventually strike an unconventional friendship but after a major mishap in school, Bubble is now hellbent on acquiring the unique B-bot in their possession while Barney fights everyone to keep his new best friend away from the gnarly hands of corporates. He will also quite literally drive out the bullies while looking darn cute in the process. If you're curious to know just how un-dated Ron is well, his database is stuck at the letter 'A' while his idea of friend requests is literally sticking heart figures on whoever he deems fit to be Barney's friend whether it be a thug, a grandma or even a newborn baby. While initially elated, Barney quickly realises, to his dismay, what a malfunctioning hazard the B-bot named Ron ( Zach Galifianakis) really is. Overcome with the guilt of being distant from Barney, Graham and Donka purchase a B-bot, though, a defective one at best as it fell off a pickup truck. While Bubble CEO and the creator of the B-bot, Marc Weidell (Rob Delaney), positively aspires for kids to be able to make new 'human' friends with the help of a robotic 'best friend in the whole world', Bubble COO Andrew Morris (Rob Delaney, who staunchly resembles a Tim Cook lookalike) has evil intentions in mind to collect data by spying on children as a model of consumerism. The ideology behind the B-bot is divided into a two-way street. With your very own B-bot, the technology is customised to adapt to your likes and dislikes while connecting you to the rest of the globe, through followers, likes, live-streams, etc. Taking place on the day of Barney's birthday, we're shown how truly outcast our main protagonist is when he's literally the only student in his buzzing high school that isn't in possession of Apple-esque tech giant Bubble's latest, must-have creation: the B-bot which is basically robots meeting social media. Ron's Gone Wrong centers on awkward teen Barney Pudowski's (Jack Dylan Grazer) lonesome life, devoid of friends and equipped with a misunderstood yet caring Bulgarian family widower dad Graham Pudowski (Ed Helms) selling novelties like glittery unicorn poop, and Borat-esque grandmother Donka Pudowski (Olivia Colman) taming goats and chickens. However, what we're treated with instead is a heartwarming and equally quirky tale, critiquing the pros and cons of social media and its undeniable influence on innocent youth.

The emotional tug at heartstrings when it comes to a friendship between a human and his robot sidekick has been tried and tested for decades and you'd expect Ron's Gone Wrong to be a throwaway E.T. Ron's Gone Wrong Directors: Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine Ron's Gone Wrong Cast: Jack Dylan Grazer, Zach Galifianakis, Olivia Colman, Ed Helms

Barney and friends be a friend