Wreck-It Ralph

Title: Wreck-It Ralph

Year: 2012

Director: Rich Moore

Rating by MPAA: PG for some rude humor and mild action/violence

Synopsis: A video game villain wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfill his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives.

Official Movie Site and IMDb Page

Official Trailer

STEPH SAID

Rating: 

Review:

This movie was amazing; way more than I was expecting. I loved its storyline, characters, concept, plot twists and its allusions. This story has everything: drama, action, comedy, romance and a bit of politics and ethics.

At first, mostly thanks to the movie’s trailer, I thought the movie was just about a bad guy who wants to become a hero. However, right at the beginning of the movie you find out that Ralph is not a bad guy. He is just an outsider who lives in a dump and wrecks thing because that’s his job. All he wants is company, a house and, mostly, that his work be appreciated. He decides the only way things could change, the only way for his hard work to be recognized, is by earning a gold medal and thus, become a hero. This is done early in the movie; Ralph manages to acquire the medal quickly. Afterwards, he enters, by accident, the game “Sugar Rush” and that’s where the real story and adventure starts to unfold.

I love the concept of the characters from video games being alive. That is why I decided to watch the movie. It felt like a really cool mash up between Toy Story and Tron. What is more amazing is that the characters aren’t just alive; they actually have a life inside and outside the world of the game. Of course, the player will never see that, because the player only sees either one specific point of the world, or places a camera focuses on. This is super cool for two reasons. First, there are parts of the movie which can be seen from the games’ perspective; sometimes you would find yourself inside the game looking out to the player. Second, you can see what happens "behind the scenes". For example, Wreck-It Ralph, the game, takes place in the building Ralph wrecks and Felix fixes. But when the arcade is closed we can see a town nearby, a train station and a dumpster. Also, we get to see what the characters do when they’re not working.

“Sugar Rush” was amazing. It was the right amount of sweet. In it, Ralph meets Vanellope, (love her name by the way) a girl that is also an outsider and is bullied for being different. At first, I thought she was just a funny character, but she kept growing on me as the story progressed.

I do have one complain. I have to point out one small scene that I didn’t like. In it Calhoun and Felix get stuck in quicksand; the only way out is to grab some candy that is hanging over their heads. But, the candy was too far away. However, they discovered the candy got closer to them if they were funny. Their joke of choosing: violence. Calhoun would hit Felix, leaving him all swollen, and the candy would laugh and get closer to Calhoun and Felix. Then, Felix would fix himself with his hammer and Calhoun would hit him again. I didn’t like how violence was portrayed as a joke, like nothing bad was really happening because Felix could fix himself up. That looked like the cycle of violence and I know that if the roles were reversed, Felix hitting Calhoun, the movie would have raised many objections. People would have been scandalized that Disney is teaching kids that hitting a woman is fun. But, really, the fact that is a woman hitting a man is no different in my eyes.

Leaving aside this short scene, the movie was great, thought-provoking, funny and amazing. It has a great message. I definitely recommend it for the whole family.