Review: Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

I had the opportunity this week to (finally) sit down and watch a film that most of my friends have been recommending to me for some time now: Wreck-It Ralph.  To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from this movie, other than it had something to do with video game characters.  There’s something to be said for going in blind, that’s for sure.  For while I was impressed with much of the video game humor in the film (both old school and new school alike), I was also able to see where the flick came up just short of being truly amazing.

The story of Wreck-It Ralph follows a video game character by the name of, you guessed it, Wreck-It Ralph.  His job in his game is to smash down an apartment complex so that his nemesis Fix-It Felix, controlled by the player, can repair it with his magic hammer.  If the player does well, the residents of the apartment complex gather together and toss Ralph off the building and into the mud.  Then Felix gets a medal.  But Ralph is jealous of all the attention that Felix gets and is a bit tired of being the bad guy all the time.  So he decides to head out of his own game and into some other games in search of his own medal of heroism.

After robbing a soldier of his outfit, Ralph stumbles off into a hard-core, FPS (that’s first-person shooter, for you noobs), marines vs. aliens game called Hero’s Duty.  There, he proves himself to be less than a hero, but still manages to get his medal.  Upon making his escape, he goes flying uncontrollably into yet another game, this one a candy-themed racer called Sugar Rush. 

There, he loses his medal and must go through all sorts of trouble to get it back.  Along the way, Ralph meets up with a veteran marine lady called Sergeant Calhoun and a little girl named Vanellope von Schweetz who dreams of becoming a real racer in Sugar Rush despite being a “glitch” in the game.  Along with Fix-It Felix, they try to save Sugar Rush from an infestation of alien bugs and discover there’s much more going on than they thought.

The best thing that Wreck-It Ralph has to offer by-far is the voice talent.  John C. Reilly does Ralph, Sarah Silverman does Vanellope, Jack McBrayer takes on Felix and Jane Lynch plays Calhoun.  There’s also great work done by Alan Tudyk as Sugar Rush’s King Candy.  The combined talent really makes the movie engaging.

As for the video game gimmick that the story revolves around, it’s done really well up to a point.  They take the time to throw in some wonderful references across the spectrum of the gaming experience, but at a certain point in the film, Wreck-It Ralph settles into the familiar and cliché kids’ film that it is.  There’s a good 30 minutes in the middle of the flick that could be swapped into any other movie for basically the same effect.  It’s as if they felt the video game references were going far enough and decided to pull the plug.  Luckily, they add a few good gags at the end to remind you of where you are.

All-in-all, I would certainly watch this movie again, but still feel a little bit sad that it could have been so much more.  As it stands now, it’s got great talent, it’s beautiful to look at and it’s funny in most parts.  Since they move was popular enough, it looks like Disney is planning a sequel as well.  Hopefully they’ll push the boundaries on this one and try to make it even better.  For those that enjoy video games or clever kids’ films, definitely put this on your list.

Wreck-It Ralph promo courtesy of collider.com