Albie Hecht, animation, Brianna Jaynes, Dan Rhodes, Emma Kaji, Evangeline Lomelino, Jack Reid, Julia Stockton, Kate Kaji, Loann Kaji, movies, reviews, Ryan Kaji, Ryan's World, Ryan's World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure, Scott Whyte, Shion Kaji, YouTube
August 16, 2024
by Carla Hay
“Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure”
Directed by Albie Hecht
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city and in fantasy realm, the live-action/animated film “Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure” (featuring the stars of the Ryan’s World channel on YouTube) features an Asian and white group of people representing the middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: YouTube star Ryan Kaji becomes an animated superhero named Red Titan when he goes into a fantasy realm to rescue his twin sisters from an evil villain.
Culture Audience: “Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of Ryan Kaji and his family and can tolerate children’s entertainment that is silly, boring, and reeks of “cash grab.”
“Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure” is an endurance test for anyone looking for quality family entertainment. This cinematic junk is what happens when underage YouTube stars with no acting talent have parents who pay for the family to star in a vanity movie motivated by greed. It’s not the kids’ fault. This film flop looks like it happened because of stage parents who want to cash in by extending their kids’ YouTube child star fame that will inevitably expire when the kids grow up and can’t do cute toy videos anymore.
Directed by Albie Hecht and written by Rose Frankel, “Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure” is based on Ryan’s World, a YouTube channel that is known for doing reviews of toys and showing the antics of a fame-hungry family. The stars of Ryan’s World are members of the Texas-based family who uses the stage surname Kaji. Channel namesake Ryan Kaji is the main star, but the YouTube channel also features Ryan’s father Shion Kaji, Ryan’s mother Loann Kaji, and Ryan’s twin sisters Emma Kaji and Kate Kaji. They all star in this movie as versions of themselves. Ryan Kaji and his family started doing YouTube videos in 2015. Shion Kaji, Loann Kaji and Hecht are the producers of this movie.
Since 2017, Forbes magazine has ranked Ryan Kaji in its Top 10 list of the world’s highest-paid YouTube stars. Ryan’s World (formerly known as Ryan ToysReview) has been at the center of legal and ethical controversy because of how it presents sponsor-paid product recommendations to pre-schoolers. In 2019, Truth in Advertising and the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint, citing that Ryan’s World channel (then known as Ryan ToysReview) did not properly disclose which recommendations in the videos were sponsored.
The quality of “Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure” (which is a hybrid of live action and animation) is on the level of amateurish YouTube videos made by millionaires who want to become movie stars without having to put in any real work to become good actors. In other words: Don’t be fooled into paying any money to see this glorified YouTube video. There’s better-quality family entertainment that people can see for free on YouTube.
“Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure” is produced in part by PocketWatch, a children’s-oriented media company co-founded by Hecht, a former Nickelodeon president who worked closely with disgraced former Nickelodeon executive producer Dan Schneider for several years. Ryan Kaji’s parents signed a deal with PocketWatch in 2017, when it was a start-up company. Since then, the Kaji family’s brand (using Ryan’s name) has expanded to include merchandising, video games, TV series, and now this terrible movie that got a wide release in U.S. cinemas. Hecht cast himself in the movie in a cameo role, as an unnamed delivery guy.
In “Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure,” the cast members in the live-action scenes struggle with saying their lines of dull dialogue with emotions that almost never look believable. Twin sisters Emma Kaji and Kate Kaji steal all of their scenes, but their acting skills are understandably limited, considering they weren’t past kindergarten age when they made this embarrassing film. Everyone else’s performances are pure cringe and the epitome of tackiness that isn’t fun to watch at all.
The movie begins by showing Ryan Kaji in what’s supposed to be his home backyard. He’s helping real-life YouTube teenage magician Dan Rhodes (playing a version of himself) participating in the old magic trick illusion of dissecting a human body by separating boxes. Rhodes has a brief, useless and pointless role in the movie that looks like it was done as a friend favor to give Rhodes some screen time, which is less than 10 minutes in the film.
The magic trick is being livestreamed, with Ryan’s tomboyish best friend Aiden (played by Evangeline Lomelino) operating the phone camera. Aiden is an annoying character who’s hyper and flaky but she’s the first to tell Ryan to calm down and be sensible. Lomelino does all the expected facial contortions and wide-eyed mugging where she tries to look like a comedic sidekick, but the acting performance is just too awkward and forced.
Ryan becomes angry with Emma and Kate because the twins have messed up his room and decorated his bike helmet with bedazzle-type beads and fake gems. Aiden and Ryan decide to go to Dabgib Comics, their favorite comic book store. A teenage store employee named Clark (played by Jack Reid) tells Ryan that Clark’s younger sister Mia is a superfan of Ryan.
Aiden and Ryan see a locked door in Dabgib Comics and are curious to know what’s behind the locked door. Clark tells them the room is off-limits except to store employees. Against Ryan’s objections, Aiden tells Clark that if he opens the door for them, Ryan will make a personal video for Mia. The enticement works. Clark gives Ryan and Aiden the code to unlock the door.
Inside this secretive room are pinball machines, comic books, games and some other entertainment. Ryan and Aiden find a “Red Titan” comic book. Ryan immediately notices that the story in this comic book is a ripoff of an idea that he already had. This movie is so sloppily written, it doesn’t explain where Ryan first presented this idea and how this idea could’ve been stolen.
As revenge, Ryan and Aiden steal the comic book and bring it back to Ryan’s house. As the two friends leave, Clark smirks and puts up a Closed sign on the store’s front window. The only way the movie could’ve made it more obvious that Clark will be a villain is if he was twirling a fake moustache.
Ryan and Aiden open the comic book, which has a magical portal. (All of this movie’s visual effects are tacky.) Somehow, Emma and Kate end up going in the portal and are being held captive in the lair of a villain named Dark Titan (voiced by Scott Whyte), so Ryan comes to his sisters’ rescue and turns into the superhero Red Titan. The “portal” scenes in the movie are animation. Meanwhile, Aiden stays behind in Ryan’s room during this adventure and isn’t seen for most of story, because let’s not forget that this is a crassly obvious nepotism movie.
The animated Emma and Kate are voiced by actress Brianna Jaynes, who is an adult in real life. Having an adult for these child voice roles is probably a way to avoid child labor laws and probably a way to reduce the overabundance of stiff acting from the Kaji family. The voice actors who are not part of the Kaji family are the cast members who fare the best in this movie because the animation has better acting than the abysmal acting performances from the live actors. Even so, the animated characters are a mishmash of generic and uninteresting, with dialogue that is bland and forgettable.
Inside the lair of Dark Titan are jail cells where his captives are held. Emma and Kate are in a jail cell next a talkative cat named Alpha Lexa (voiced by Julia Stockton) and a mischievous panda named Combo (voiced by Bradley Smith), which look like Pixar rejects. There’s also a bat-like creature that has a gold and circular body named Packrat (also voiced by Whyte), who flits around and has very little purpose but to fill up space. You already know how this movie is going to end.
Ryan’s parents Shion Kaji and Loann Kaji have perhaps the most cringeworthy appearances in this train-wreck movie. Luckily for anyone viewing this mess, these stage parents’ appearances are very short-lived—less than five minutes of screen time. For reasons that are never explained, the characters of Shion and Loann are in their house dressed as if they’re about to go to a kids’ Halloween party while everyone else in the house is dressed normally.
Shion is dressed as a pink bunny rabbit. At one point, he wiggles his rear end for the camera because it’s supposed to be hilarious to see a bunny tail on a man. Loann is dressed as a wizard, looking like someone who bought a cheap costume and thinking she’s going to win some sort of Harry Potter cosplay contest. Shion gets a little more screen time than Loann. Both of their acting performances are horrendous.
Who in their right mind thinks this type of self-absorbed nepotism project is funny and entertaining? Maybe people who are intoxicated or people who think anything they watch is good. It’s one thing to make lightweight videos on YouTube. It’s another thing to expect viewers (especially families with underage kids, who are the movie’s main target audience) to spend time and/or money to see bad acting and horrible filmmaking. With all the money that the Kaji family is making from YouTube fame, maybe they should invest some of that money in hiring competent filmmakers and taking acting lessons that produce results that movie audiences will pay to watch and not feel cheated.
Falling Forward Films released “Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure” in U.S. cinemas on August 16, 2024.