Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph is arguably one of the most important movies we’ll be reviewing here at Back2Gaming. Heck, if I had my way, I’d condense my take on it into the following statement:
It’s adorable, go watch it.
Wreck-It Ralph follows the story of its titular character, voiced by John C. Reilly, on his ill-advised and self-centered quest to become a hero after being fed up with his role as his game’s bad guy. He exists within an ’80s style arcade game called Fix-It Felix Jr., a sort analogue/thinly-veiled reference to the original Donkey Kong. And after thirty years of being hurled off the top of the one apartment building he’s been trying to wreck, he leaves his game to finally gain recognition as a “good guyâ€.
The movie starts out by establishing the world in which the characters exist, which in this case, of course, is an arcade. When the lights go out, the inhabitants of every game to each others’ titles via a central hub, the cleverly conceived “Game Central Station†which in reality, is the arcade’s heavy duty power strip.
When Wreck-It Ralph was first announced along with its cameos from various existing video game characters, I was cautiously optimistic. After all, my main fear concerning this movie is that it would milk the cameos and inside jokes for all they’re worth without even trying to tell a decent to solid story. Fortunately, I can lay those fears to rest.
First off, the voice casting for the movie is mighty solid. John C. Reilly delivers as the film’s protagonist while Jack McBrayer, Sarah Silverman, and Jane Lynch provide entertaining and yet recognizable performances. McBrayer’s turn as Fix-It Felix Jr. exudes the right amount of naïve, goody-two-shoes charm as expected from such a character, while Jane Lynch brings the authoritative huskiness we’ve come to associate with her from stuff like Glee and Role Models and funnels it through Sgt. Calhoun, the movie’s tough-as-nails homage to strong female video game characters, with part of her design clearly influenced by the female version of Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect series.
With that said, it was Sarah Silverman and Alan Tudyk who really stood out here. I for one, never expected Silverman to be able to pull off voicing someone as cutesy as Vanellope Von Schweetz. Tudyk, on the other hand, is nigh unrecognizable until the moment you read his name in the credits.
As for the story, the film does a really good, albeit oddly paced job at world building. MovieBob said it best in his take on the movie, where “the rules are laid out just before they become important†or something along those lines. Despite that, these rules add a real sense of consistency and danger to Wreck-It Ralph. Sure, they may be video game characters, but they still have certain things at stake.
It’s only during the second to third acts that the movie shows its Disney roots. While not inherently a bad thing, it’s could be a letdown for some and it could be said that the shift could be seen from a mile away. Still, the execution remains deft and the character arcs are still pretty entertaining to watch. It also gets into some pretty serious territory when themes of death and heroism come into play.
On a final note, I’m very, very glad that the folks at Disney didn’t rely heavily on the movie’s various cameos and nods to video games. I’d like to think they’re thrown in there for added appeal, but aren’t really the movie’s main selling point. Sure, some of the most memorable bits come from these (as shown by Zangief’s lines in the trailers), but I’m relieved that the movie isn’t entirely made up of them. To do that is just plain pandering to the audience, if you ask me.
With all that said, let me go back to what I said earlier… it’s adorable, go watch it.