Director: Rich Moore
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family
Rating: A+
Okay, so I'm just going to stick this out there: I was looking up the movie's cast list for this review when I saw that Alan Tudyk is in this as King Candy. Nothing bad comes from having Alan Tudyk in your movie or TV show - hell, he was even great in Dollhouse, and Dollhouse wasn't all that great despite being from the mind of Joss Whedon. He's not starring, but he should be because his role is significant and he's awesome. Adding to this awesomeness is Jane Lynch, who is equally as awesome! She is by far the best part of Glee, and I have to say I love watching old shows from the late 90s and early 00s, and seeing her randomly appear.
Wreck-It Ralph is about an old arcade game villain, Wreck-It Ralph (Reilly) who is tired of being the villain. He is never appreciated for what he does and the essential role that he plays in the game, and wants to be appreciated in some way - to get the kind of recognition that his game's hero, Fix-It Felix, Jr. (McBrayer), gets. After an argument with one of the game's Nicelanders, Mayor Gene (Raymond S. Persi), Ralph decides to leave his game and go in search of one where he can win a medal, like the one that Felix gets daily. He travels to the first-person shooter Hero's Duty, where he can win a medal for climbing a tower and killing bugs. In between games, Ralph does just that - but in the process he accidentally hatches a Cy-Bug, which clings to him as he stumbles into an escape pod. The bug and Ralph fly into the kart-racing game Sugar Rush. Here Ralph meets game glitch Vanellope von Schweetz (Silverman), who dreams of becoming a racer, despite the hatred that the other citizens of Sugar Rush hold for her. Meanwhile, Felix has also left Fix-It Felix, Jr, with the realization that if he doesn't find Ralph the game will be unplugged an everyone in it will be left homeless in Game Central Station. Felix pairs up with Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun (Lynch), the hardened lead character of Hero's Duty, who realizes just how bad the escape of the Cy-Bug is. The bug doesn't realize it's a video game character, and will set out to destroy any game that it's in - before moving on to Game Central Station and infesting other games.
I love the many dimensions to this movie. There's a lot going on with the plot, but it never feels like it's too much. The one thing that I didn't like, at least at first, were the many references to "going Turbo", which I felt could have been explained earlier. To me, "turbo" is the power charge that you get in race type games, and so I had no clue what it meant in the video game land - something that they realize in Wreck-It Ralph, because they do set out to explain it after awhile, but in my mind not soon enough. I understood why Ralph's disappearance was a threat, but not why they called Ralph's actions "Turbo." It worked out in the end, but there was that momentary annoyance whenever they mentioned it.
Beyond that, however, there's a lot going on in this movie. Each of the main characters, really, has their own plot and has to come to different realizations. I love that, especially given as it's a children's movie. While I've come to expect depth in a children's movie, I don't expect this much. I loved it. Including this, there's also a lot of really little details to this film. Stuff like the way that Felix and the Nicelanders moved, as if they actually were pixelated creatures - I think it would have been really nice had this continued on to Ralph as well. There are other things too - early on in the film Vanellope tells Ralph that double striped candy canes disappear when you grab them, and throughout the film you see double striped candy canes.
There's also the humour to this film. The thing that I love about Disney is that it really nicely balances the juvenile and adult humour. The relationship between Ralph and Vanellope is so cute and childish that you can't help but love it. At the same time there are so many little things that bring a smile to your face and are completely for the adult viewer. I love the fact that this is a video game movie that makes references to an entire history of video games. I loved it.
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