Wreck-It Ralph Review

This is certainly a big week for Disney. A few days after they announced that they have purchased Lucasfilm from George Lucas and simultaneously announcing that they are doing a new Star Wars trilogy, their newest film Wreck-It Ralph comes out. Now as I watched the opening credits of Wreck-It Ralph, I tried to imagine a Star Wars film with the Disney logo at the beginning. That is an idea that will take some getting used to. But I digress. If you have followed what I have written or talked to me in person, you would know that there is one initial thought I had when first hearing of this Disney movie, Wreck-It Ralph feels like a Pixar movie. And with that, Pixar's movie Brave felt like another Disney princess movie. After officially seeing the movie, that certainly holds true. After looking back at both movies, Pixar certainly played it safe with Brave. While Brave was a fun and goofy movie, it was also extremely predictable and formulaic. Wreck-It Ralph on the other hand was a bigger risk. It was a much more unique and creative idea. It really makes me happy when movies decide to do this, because any risk that came with this certainly paid off big time.

Now I say it is a unique idea and you may have to take that with a grain of salt because it does have somewhat of a Toy Story feel to it at times, especially towards the beginning. Toy Story is a story that revolves around what the toys do when the humans are gone and a lot of Wreck-It Ralph is a story about what happens in an arcade during closing hours. But that honestly isn't a huge thing, just a small thing I noticed. The story is really about Ralph. Ralph is in a game called Fix-It Felix and it is his mission to destroy things. After 30 years of being in this role he decides he is tired of it. He wants to be recognized, win medals, and be the hero for a change. This causes him to rebel and wander into other games and this causes quite the chain reaction that ensues for a fun and wild ride to the end of the movie.

Yes, the story is great and has quite the touching and surprising ending, but I think the best part of this movie was the animation and great attention to detail. Gamers of all ages will be ecstatic about this movie. And by gamers, I don't mean the people who sit playing shooting games for hours, I'm talking about gamers of all the classic arcade and video games. Video games from Atari, Nintendo, Sega, etc from the 80's and 90's. There are a lot of appearances from many games throughout the movie. There are a lot of subtle references and puns that the casual person may miss, but the gamers will love. Being a big Nintendo fan, I certainly was happy. But if you are not a gamer, don't worry, this movie is still for you. It has a good enough story and message that will make you happy. You are certain to fall in love with Sarah Silverman's character Vanellope. The others do a great job as voice actors as well -  John C Reilly as Ralph, Jack McBrayer as Felix, Jane Lynch as Calhoun, and Alan Tudyk as King Candy to name the main characters in the movie.

Overall, this is a great movie that appeals to everyone, adults and kids alike. No, it may not be the most epic movie, but it's still fun and I hope it gets a nomination for animated movie of the year at the Oscars. If you are a parent with younger kids, make sure you take your kids and go because all of you should love this. If you are neither parent nor young child, don't worry. You should enjoy this movie too. I give it a 9 out of 10.