Disney animation has been on a roll! Tangled was a great movie and a huge success and Wreck-It Ralph is even better.
Ralph is the villian in the 80’s videogame “Fix-It Felix Jr.”. Ralph breaks the apartment building while Felix Jr. comes and fixes it. At the end of the level, Ralph is thrown off the roof into the mud below. After 30 years of this, he’s sick of getting the bum rap of being a villian. In an effort to be on equal ground with the “good” guys in his game, he goes off to another game to win a medal to show them how useful and imprtant he is. Trouble insues.
The premises is really smart and very well executed. It’s kinda like the videogame spin of Toy Story. When the arcade closes, the characters can leave their game and visit the others by zipping through the power cables of the games (the hub is in the power strips that the arcade machines are plugged into). There are ton of video game references from start to finish. Half the fun is picking out all of the characters from games that are just milling about in the background.
There’s a lot of heart in this movie, Ralph being voiced by John C Reilly is a brilliant choice. I really like him to start with and he makes Ralph a super relatable and lovable character. He’s upset with his job, upset with who he is in this videogame world. His story is one of discovery of self, meeting other characters who share similar life struggles (Sarah Silverman as Venelopee is a great foil for Ralph, one of the best cartoon duos in quite sometime.). He grows as a character and uses his established skills to solve problems. There is a lot of love and respect in this film, that’s why I really liked it. It also doesn’t hurt that the animation in this movie is exceptional. The characters look and move great, the original video games they came up with are terrific and inspired. Some amazing lighting and texture work, the Sugar Rush game looks like it’s really made of candy.
It can get pretty intense at times for younger viewers, so the PG rating is applicable. Really liked it, terrific work from a studio that isn’t Pixar!