WRECK-IT RALPH: Game On

Note: Mild spoilers can be found in this review. - Zack

Translating video games into film is never an easy task. Especially for the Walt Disney Company. Their first venture into the world of gaming was in 1982 with the sci-fi adventure film TRON, starring Jeff Bridges. Then came Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and TRON: Legacy from 2010. All three films weren’t box-office blockbusters but found life after theaters on Blu-Ray/DVD. It seemed as though Disney couldn’t break through to gamers. So they decided to Wreck their way through to gamers. Walt Disney Animation Studios, headed by John Lasseter, released a new kind of video game movie, Wreck-It Ralph.


In the arcade game “Fix-It Felix Jr.”, Wreck-It Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) is a regular guy with enormous size and strength stuck doing the same old shtick: destroying an apartment building only to be thwarted by Fix-It Felix Jr. (voice of Jack McBrayer). He confesses to his fellow peers that he doesn’t want to be a bad guy anymore. Everyone believes that Ralph is crazy; that he should just accept what he is, no matter how hard it seems. At a 30th anniversary for the game, one of the apartment tenants sarcastically tells him the only way he could be a hero is if he wins a medal like Felix.

Undeterred, Ralph jumps from his own game to another game: a next-gen first-person shooter game called “Hero’s Duty”, led by the no-nonsense space Marine, Sgt. Calhoun (voice of Jane Lynch). After being terrified by the new, “scary” world, Ralph gets his medal but before he can return to his own game, he is accidentally propelled into another game world: the kart-racing game, “Sugar Rush”.

Once there, Ralph meets a bratty little girl named Vanellope Von Schweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman) who steals his medal for payment into a race to be on the roster for the arcade players, headed by the goofy King Candy (voice of Alan Tudyk). After settling their differences, Ralph and Vanellope reluctantly team up to get a new kart for her to race in so she can get his medal back. Meanwhile, Felix has noticed Ralph has gone missing and joins Sgt. Calhoun in tracking him down. They realize that Ralph’s game-jumping has caused a potential travesty that could bring down the whole arcade. Still, no one realizes there is an even more dangerous threat lurking in the shadows.

Like The Muppets a year ago, I find myself unusually conflicted in my opinion of this film. I’m not afraid to say I liked it, I just can’t say I loved it. The first hour of the film is hilarious (not on par with The Emperor’s New Groove which moves at a faster pace): all the great cameos and all the great jokes are there. Who would’ve guessed Disney would okay a film with a zombie getting his heart ripped out and the phrase, “Thanks, Satan”? Fantastic.

But the problems really start with “Hero’s Duty”. After a brief battle, Ralph decides not to regroup with the rest of the troops and climbs up the tower for his medal. At the top, he’s able to get the medal. WAY TOO EASY. It might be unfair to compare this film to Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I’m gonna do it anyway: it makes you care more about the character if you see him work hard to get what he wants. Ralph simply climbs the building and gets his medal. No booby traps. No predicaments. I realize it would have made the movie longer include them, but at least it would have sold me on being a real game.

And then we get to “Sugar Rush” and Vanellope. Sigh. I have nothing against Sarah Silverman. I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of hers. The only thing I’ve enjoyed her in was her two-part episode on “Star Trek: Voyager”, “Future’s End”, portraying a 20th century astrologer who comes across members of the Voyager crew. Other than that, I’ve not seen most of her comedy career (yes, I know she was in School of Rock, but I didn’t enjoy her in that). The ending involves the reset of the game and the reveal that Vanellope is actually a princess. In a movie about video games, in a time when Disney is doing their damndest to appeal to boys by buying Marvel and Lucasfilm (did notice a few Star Wars references in the film), why on Earth include a plug for Disney Princesses? WHY?! It’s so grating to get this far into the film and then suddenly have the film shift more towards girls. Can Disney NOT make an animated film without including a princess of some kind? (You: “Winnie-the-Pooh.” Me: “Shut up!”)

One good positive I can say is I did genuinely not see the final reveal of the true villain of the film coming. Was it scary to me? No, not really. It was genuinely creepy, but if I was a five-year-old sitting in that audience? I’d be scared out of my mind! Yeah, maybe they should have lost the other “persona” of the character and just make the character flat-out scary, but it was fine to me. Hearing that voice threaten to kill Ralph was a nice contrast to his appearance. So I suppose in that way, it works. At least we have an animated Disney villain who does not die due to falling.

In all, I can say that the pros of Wreck-It Ralph outweigh the very noticeable cons. It’s a good film that *could* have been great. There’s been talk of a sequel; naturally, the film was Walt Disney Animation Studios’ biggest opening ever at $48 million. If the problems I’ve mentioned above are no longer there, it will make for a much better film. Wreck-It Ralph has genuine laughs and genuine heart, but it does not present itself to its audience as they thought it would be rather than what it wants to be.

P.S. The short "Paperman" is nothing less than beautiful. Why can't Disney animate a whole movie like this? It'd be fantastic!

P.P.S. Stay until the end of the credits.