Wreck-It Ralph
A Review
Over the Christmas break I visited my family in a small town just outside of Tamworth, the "country music capital" of Australia. It's always been a blast when I watch movies up there, every time I visit the local cinemas there is at least one glitch, and this time around when seeing Wreck-It Ralph was no exception.
After purchasing tickets with and lining up at the front to have our tickets ripped by the little old "cinema lady", we found our way to our seats in front of the big screen. Our seats were located by the entry door, giving us a prime opportunity to study the types of people as they walk inside (not a freak). It didn't take long for the "bogan family" to walk in - mum in her over-casual wear, dad in his stubbies and wife-beater, and three boys with hair styled into ratties and holding their individual popcorns like footballs. Then you had the farmers walk in - blue button-up shirts, paired with a darker shade of blue jeans plus belt buckles, then followed by the "3 generations in one" family (grandma, mum and all of the kids). The room was starting to fill up, and needless to say it was getting pretty boisterous.
Throughout the movie, the room was filled with excerpts of children talking loudly, the "3 gen" family's grandpa screaming for the hearing aid loop, the rummaging of popcorn and opening of lolly packets by the people behind us, and of course my own mother's distinguishable and contagious laugh. These noises normally distract me from whatever movie I'm watching, but dang, this time it really made me feel at home.
But enough of my experience, onto the review! [spoilers ahead]
Wreck-It Ralph is about an arcade game villain who is over his life of "wrecking stuff" and has the desire to become a hero instead. In setting out to fulfill his dream, he unintentionally brings havoc to other arcade games around him. So with the support of other arcade game characters, he rights the wrongs of his own doing, and faces a larger threat that could affect much more than just one game.
Wreck-It Ralph stars:
John C. Reilly as the main villain-hero Ralph. Ralph is overly large, clumsy and tends to wreck everything he comes close to.
Jack McBrayer as Felix, the hero of Ralph's arcade game. Felix's role in his arcade game is to fix everything that Ralph wrecks. This ability sticks with him always, and proves to be a useful (and sometimes hilarious) tool.
Sarah Silverman as Vanellope von Schweetz. Vanellope is a glitchy, imperfect and adorable character in another arcade game called "Sugar Rush". Despite being cast out by King Candy, all she wants to do is what's in her code: kart-race.
Jane Lynch as Sergeant Calhoun. Tough, no-nonsense and war-hardened, Calhoun has proved herself a leader in not only her own arcade game "Hero's Duty", but also in her own quest to destroy the "Cy-bugs" that Ralph has inadvertently released into "Sugar Rush".
Alan Tudyk as the real villain of the movie, King Candy. Ruler over the land of "Sugar Rush", King Candy has the ultimate power and persuasion to tweak things in his own favour..
Directed by Rich Moore, director of Futurama and a few The Simpsons episodes, I was expecting more jokes of that nature. I'm pleased to say that the jokes in Wreck-It Ralph are fresh, and very non-Futurama. Some of my favourites come from King Candy, who throws out the well known "you hit a guy with glasses", plus a few puns that literally made me laugh out loud. One of the things that did feel "Simpsony" were Sergeant Calhoun's action tag lines, which definitely wasn't a bad thing! These lines made me laugh so hard, and reminds me of every action movie from the last 20 years. Great lines such as "Cy-bugs will chew up that game faster than a chicken hawk in a coop of crippled roosters" and "Flattery don't charge these batteries, civilian".
This movie is the only film I've reviewed these holidays that is not based on a novel, and so I enjoyed this original world and story very much. I love the world that Disney have created to tell us this story. It's a setting that's never been shown in this way, and I adore the way it's been explored. Everything is of video game nature; the townspeople in Ralph's game are animated like 8-bit characters (but still retain their animated look), the characters in Sergeant Calhoun's game have been animated more fluidly and in high definition to reflect the higher graphics associated with action games, and also Vanellope von Schweetz in the way she randomly glitches and flickers like a broken video game would.
There's a buttload of development shown in the arcade game lands, but the land that we're thrown into the most is Vanellope's game "Sugar Rush". This is basically a kart-racing arcade game filled with various candy characters and landscapes. Great stuff like singing Laffy Taffy vines, Oreo soldiers chanting a low and slow "Orreeeooo", Mentos stalactites dangling above diet soda inside a volcano (I think you can guess what happens when the Mentos fall). For sure I'd play this game if it were real!
Despite the great visuals and humour shown in Wreck-It Ralph, it's still a typical Disney plot template. Introduction, motivation for adventure, humour parts, film gets serious, major heartbreak, solution, larger evil vanquished, everyone lives happily ever after. I really tend to get fidgety in the third quarter of the film, where [more spoilers] Ralph and Vanellope build a race car together, but then Ralph persuaded by King Candy that he has to destroy the racer "to protect Vanellope", and so breaks Vanellope's heart, followed by further character sadness and deep reflection, and then a quick scene to show the motivation to fix it all. It's necessary for the story to build up to the climax, but so unfortunate that it's nothing different from other Disney films.
But despite my little issue with the film, Wreck-It Ralph is a GREAT film. It's highly suitable for the kids, and packs fantastic jokes for the rest of us.
Oh, and look out for the Skrillex cameo!
This movie is the only film I've reviewed these holidays that is not based on a novel, and so I enjoyed this original world and story very much. I love the world that Disney have created to tell us this story. It's a setting that's never been shown in this way, and I adore the way it's been explored. Everything is of video game nature; the townspeople in Ralph's game are animated like 8-bit characters (but still retain their animated look), the characters in Sergeant Calhoun's game have been animated more fluidly and in high definition to reflect the higher graphics associated with action games, and also Vanellope von Schweetz in the way she randomly glitches and flickers like a broken video game would.
There's a buttload of development shown in the arcade game lands, but the land that we're thrown into the most is Vanellope's game "Sugar Rush". This is basically a kart-racing arcade game filled with various candy characters and landscapes. Great stuff like singing Laffy Taffy vines, Oreo soldiers chanting a low and slow "Orreeeooo", Mentos stalactites dangling above diet soda inside a volcano (I think you can guess what happens when the Mentos fall). For sure I'd play this game if it were real!
Despite the great visuals and humour shown in Wreck-It Ralph, it's still a typical Disney plot template. Introduction, motivation for adventure, humour parts, film gets serious, major heartbreak, solution, larger evil vanquished, everyone lives happily ever after. I really tend to get fidgety in the third quarter of the film, where [more spoilers] Ralph and Vanellope build a race car together, but then Ralph persuaded by King Candy that he has to destroy the racer "to protect Vanellope", and so breaks Vanellope's heart, followed by further character sadness and deep reflection, and then a quick scene to show the motivation to fix it all. It's necessary for the story to build up to the climax, but so unfortunate that it's nothing different from other Disney films.
But despite my little issue with the film, Wreck-It Ralph is a GREAT film. It's highly suitable for the kids, and packs fantastic jokes for the rest of us.
Oh, and look out for the Skrillex cameo!
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