Wreck-It Ralph, 2012.
Directed by Rich Moore.
Featuring the voice talents of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Jack McBrayer, Mindy Kaling, Joe Lo Truglio, Ed O’Neill and Dennis Haysbert.
SYNOPSIS:
A video game villain wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfill his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives.
When the trailer was released for Wreck-It Ralph, I immediately knew I was going to love it. As someone who grew up going down to the local bowling alley to play the arcades rather than tackle the pins, this was a movie that was right up my street as an homage to all the things I love about video games. But with a lot of personal hype, could Wreck-It Ralph live up to its expectations?
First off, it should be noted that the trailer for the movie caught a lot of traction and Internet buzz because it featured a lot of established video game characters like Bowser from Super Mario Bros., Zangief and M. Bison from Street Fighter II and Clyde from Pac-Man. As someone who loves this era of video games, I was hoping to see a lot more references but did worry that the majority of them would go over a large portion of the audience. I can report however that 85% of the references made about established video games are in the trailer and the rest of the movie is left to its own devices and jokes. Sure there are a couple of other nods to Metal Gear Solid, Walter Day and the Konami Code, but the movie is more about their own characters rather than the ones we already know and love – and this is a good thing. While I did state that I wanted to see more of them, to do so would have hurt the movie. The film survives without the need of these in-jokes to please fanboys and does so just fine.
One of the reasons this is a good thing is, as I mentioned briefly before, there were a lot of jokes that went over the heads of the younger members of the audience. While I found a lot of humour in cameos from Root Beer Tapper and Q*Bert, a large portion of the audience didn’t laugh due to the fact that these games came out in the 20 years before the new Disney audience was even born. They instead laughed at the main characters of the movie – which is entirely the point.
The other reason this is a good thing is because Wreck-It Ralph is a brilliantly written, well told story with wonderfully likeable characters. Ralph is the bad guy in a Donkey Kong-esque game called Fix-It Felix Jr. but after being shunned from the game’s 30th anniversary party, Ralph decides that he no longer wants to be a bad guy anymore and wants a medal to show the people of Niceland that he can be a hero. To do this, he goes to a Gears of War type first person shooter called Hero’s Duty and then onto a Mario Kart style game called Sugar Rush where he meets glitch Vanellope who also wants to be one of life’s winners. Some viewers may be disappointed that he doesn’t visit any other games and I can sort of see why as a rather slow second act leaves a lot to be desired.
Aside from just being well written characters, the voice cast of Wreck-It Ralph do a phenomenal job of bringing them to life rather than just being celebrity voice actors. John C. Reilly (Carnage, The Dictator) is great as Ralph and Sarah Silverman (School of Rock, Take this Waltz) does a wonderfully sweet and sickly voice for Venellope. Jane Lynch (Rio, Paul) is absolutely brilliant as the Samus Aran style Calhoun (who was programmed with the saddest back story ever) while Alan Tudyk (Ice Age, I-Robot) appears to be channelling Ed Wynn in his performance of Sugar Rush’s King Candy. It was also nice to see they brought in Roger Craig Smith to perform Sonic’s voice – even if it is a voice that angers most “old skool” gamers.
Wreck-It Ralph, like Toy Story, also does a great job of setting up how their world works. Rather than just having the audience accept that game characters can interact with each other, they have a detailed and well thought out set-up in which game characters go into their games from Game Central Station where they enter via the cable from the plug socket. It seems simple written down, but on the big screen and in motion, it’s absolutely genius. Even how the human players see their games is explained very cleverly with the exception of Sugar Rush whose world is never truly defined. We see how humans play Fix-It Felix Jr. and Hero’s Duty but we aren’t given a clear indication of just how they interact with Sugar Rush. This is a minor complaint, but it was one that stuck out like a sore thumb for me seeing as though every other aspect had been thought through so well.
Aside from some minor niggles in plot, a fairly weak second act and some ham-fisted soundtrack choices, Wreck-It Ralph is a really well-written, beautifully animated and well performed movie. The relationship between Ralph and Vanellope is really sweet and there are a few tender moments between the two that tugged at my heart strings. Retro gamers will enjoy the in-jokes (even if most of them are in the trailer) but they will also enjoy just how good the movie is. Anyone who doesn’t understand these references need not fear, there is more than enough in this movie to latch on to in what is Disney’s best non-Pixar movie since The Princess and the Frog.
Wreck-It Ralph is released in the UK this Friday, February 8th.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Luke Owen is a freelance copywriter working for Europe’s biggest golf holiday provider as their web content executive.
Originally published February 5, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
