Wreck-It Ralph
Our story begins with Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) telling us the story of the arcade and the video game he lives in, Fix-It Felix Jr. We see that Ralph's job requires him to wreck a building and have Fix-It Felix (Jack McBrayer) fix the building. At the end of the game, Ralph is thrown off the building and into the mud. Felix is awarded with a medal and the game restarts. At the end of the day, when the arcade closes, Ralph goes to his home, which is the bricks from the building, nearby. We then see that Ralph is telling this to a group of villains from other video games. Ralph tells them that he doesn't like being the bad guy. Bad guys get no respect and no one likes them. Zangief (Rich Moore), one of the villains, tells him that he went through the same thing. Eventually he realized that just because he's a villain doesn't mean that he's a mean person. Eventually, the meeting ends and Ralph goes home. Once there, he notices that Felix is throwing a party for the 30th anniversary of the game. Ralph decides to come up since he feels like he should be there. So he comes up where Felix lets him in, even though he doesn't want to. Ralph notices the cake and walks over to it. He sees that he is on the ground and looking quite ugly. He tries to explain that he'd be happier with everyone else, but they refuse to listen to him. He learns that to be a hero, he has to have a medal. Eventually, Ralph smashes the cake and decides to get a medal so that they'd let him live in the penthouse. So now we follow Ralph as he tries to get a medal and be the hero he wants to be.
To put it simple, this movie is a love letter to retro gamers everywhere. There's so many references to things from older games, such as Frogger and the Konami code. Trying to keep up and notice every reference is nearly impossible since there's so many, and that's not a bad thing. For example, when Ralph meets a soldier from a game called Hero's Duty, which is an arcade FPS game, there's a wall of popular video game characters behind him including Sonic, Chun-Li, and Q-Bert. The movie even tries to get kids into liking older games by Ralph stating at one point that Retro, to him, means old, but still cool. Then there's the amazing performance of Sarah Silverman as Vanellope. She's just hilarious with each line she gives and can really be serious and depressing when the movie calls for it. There's also a great performance of Jane Lynch as Calhoun. The role calls for her to be mean and cruel, which seems perfect for someone like Jane Lynch. We can't forget the big guy himself, John C. Reilly as Ralph. He's hilarious, serious, and depressing. For his first animated film, he did a great job. Enough about the actors, let's continue on to the story. There's a lot of memorable moments from this film and can get really creative, which is shown with the Sugar Rush game, which is basically Mario Kart mixed with Candy Land. You can also really feel for these characters and the movie takes its time showing Ralph changing throughout the movie. At the beginning of the movie, Ralph only cares about himself. He wants that medal so people will finally accept and respect him. By the end, he sees what his actions have done and changes for the better. Also, without spoiling anything, the movie takes a cheap shot at how much Disney loves to put princesses in their movies.
Sadly, this movie isn't perfect. There's one side-plot in particular that the movie could of done without. When Felix first meets Calhoun, he falls in love with her. This love story seemed like it could of been OK, but it goes nowhere. Yes, it resolves how most love stories resolve, but other than that, nothing. It's just there to make jokes with. It adds nothing to the plot. It just makes Felix look like he's fighting to stay in the plot. As for the video game references, I was a little upset that there was none that modern day gamers could relate with. Most are for those that have played older consoles, such as Frogger, Dig-Dug, Sonic, and the older Street Fighter games. The closest we get to modern day is the game called Hero's Duty. It looks like a reference to games like Gears of War, but that's really it. As for the humor, when it's good, it's really good. When it's bad, it's horribly bad. The horrible jokes come in right when Ralph comes into Sugar Rush. It's nothing but candy pun after candy pun. It's funny the first couple times, but gets annoying fast.
So is this movie worth seeing? Of course. It's the modern day version of Toy Story and should become just as much a classic. Gamers everywhere need to see this movie along with any little kids that love Disney. Knowing Disney, there will be a sequel to this film. That will be one sequel I know I'm going to see. As for any advice for the sequel, include more characters that modern day gamers could relate too. Maybe have Wreck-It Ralph become a home console game. Then we could have characters like Master Cheif in there.
To put it simple, this movie is a love letter to retro gamers everywhere. There's so many references to things from older games, such as Frogger and the Konami code. Trying to keep up and notice every reference is nearly impossible since there's so many, and that's not a bad thing. For example, when Ralph meets a soldier from a game called Hero's Duty, which is an arcade FPS game, there's a wall of popular video game characters behind him including Sonic, Chun-Li, and Q-Bert. The movie even tries to get kids into liking older games by Ralph stating at one point that Retro, to him, means old, but still cool. Then there's the amazing performance of Sarah Silverman as Vanellope. She's just hilarious with each line she gives and can really be serious and depressing when the movie calls for it. There's also a great performance of Jane Lynch as Calhoun. The role calls for her to be mean and cruel, which seems perfect for someone like Jane Lynch. We can't forget the big guy himself, John C. Reilly as Ralph. He's hilarious, serious, and depressing. For his first animated film, he did a great job. Enough about the actors, let's continue on to the story. There's a lot of memorable moments from this film and can get really creative, which is shown with the Sugar Rush game, which is basically Mario Kart mixed with Candy Land. You can also really feel for these characters and the movie takes its time showing Ralph changing throughout the movie. At the beginning of the movie, Ralph only cares about himself. He wants that medal so people will finally accept and respect him. By the end, he sees what his actions have done and changes for the better. Also, without spoiling anything, the movie takes a cheap shot at how much Disney loves to put princesses in their movies.
Sadly, this movie isn't perfect. There's one side-plot in particular that the movie could of done without. When Felix first meets Calhoun, he falls in love with her. This love story seemed like it could of been OK, but it goes nowhere. Yes, it resolves how most love stories resolve, but other than that, nothing. It's just there to make jokes with. It adds nothing to the plot. It just makes Felix look like he's fighting to stay in the plot. As for the video game references, I was a little upset that there was none that modern day gamers could relate with. Most are for those that have played older consoles, such as Frogger, Dig-Dug, Sonic, and the older Street Fighter games. The closest we get to modern day is the game called Hero's Duty. It looks like a reference to games like Gears of War, but that's really it. As for the humor, when it's good, it's really good. When it's bad, it's horribly bad. The horrible jokes come in right when Ralph comes into Sugar Rush. It's nothing but candy pun after candy pun. It's funny the first couple times, but gets annoying fast.
So is this movie worth seeing? Of course. It's the modern day version of Toy Story and should become just as much a classic. Gamers everywhere need to see this movie along with any little kids that love Disney. Knowing Disney, there will be a sequel to this film. That will be one sequel I know I'm going to see. As for any advice for the sequel, include more characters that modern day gamers could relate too. Maybe have Wreck-It Ralph become a home console game. Then we could have characters like Master Cheif in there.