“Wreck-It Ralph” is the new CGI animated feature film from Disney about the bad guy from the arcade game “Fix-it Felix Jr.” named Ralph , voiced by John C. Reilly, getting tired of being called a bad guy even though he’s a nice guy. Even in the arcade he lives in, and the Game Central Station (which is the power strip where all the games are plugged in), he’s not treated well. He’s had enough of this and decides that he wants to be the hero of a game and to go to other games to finally be the good guy.
The other games he goes into are a First Person Shooter called “Hero’s Duty”, whose main character is Jean Calhoun, voiced by Jane Lynch, and a colorful racing game called “Sugar Rush” where he meets Vanellope von Schweetz, voiced by Sarah Silverman. However, Ralph is actually breaking a big rule by going into other games, so the main hero from “Fix-it Felix Jr.”, Fix-it Felix Jr., voiced by Jack McBrayer has to bring him back.
There has been major hype for this film, as people seem to think this is a film that only gamers will understand. However, it’s safe to say that this isn’t true as this film has a very good story that is able to hold itself up very nicely. You don’t need to be very video game savvy to understand this because the film does a very good job at building the world of the arcade Ralph inhabits.
This is probably the best movie based off video games so far as it feels put together by people that know how to treat the material with respect. Unlike other films such as the 1980’s film “The Wizard” which was a 90 minute commercial for the NES and Orlando Universal Studios, this uses video games to tell a heartfelt story. Since a big part of the story deals with a conspiracy within one of the games, it would be wrong to tell the mainstory in the review. However, that doesn’t mean that this film doesn’t take advantage of video games because it goes from the obvious to the very subtle of jokes about its inspiration.
An obvious joke involves a main character being “programmed” with a traumatic backstory with a subtle joke happening during a race; a character passing another one will repeat a phrase. Other things of phrase are how none of the four main characters upstage each other. Each character is very entertaining and makes you feel drawn to them. Even the side characters are detailed and have specific quirks that make them interesting.
A hard part of making a review for a very good film about this is trying to find bad things to talk about. This film doesn’t really have any bad qualities to it; even a joke said in the middle that goes on for too long actually helps define a certain character. Some might find it a little annoying that some of the rules of the movie are told before they become important later on in the story, but that’s about all that’s wrong with the movie.
Overall, “Wreck-It Ralph” is probably the first movie based off video games to be truly great and non-pandering to its audience. The characters are greatly developed, the animation is top notch, the story is brilliant, and it gives everyone something to enjoy. This film is highly recommended.