Wreck-It Ralph (2012) Review

WRECK-IT RALPH (2012)
Director: Rich Moore

Writers: Phil Johnston, Jennifer Lee, Rich Moore, and Jim Reardon.

Producers: John Lasseter, Clark Spencer, and Monica Lago-Kaytis

Editor: Tim Mertins

Cinematography: See the animation department list from IMDb.

Music: Henry Jackman

Voices: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, and Alan Tudyk

Runtime: 1 hour 41 minutes

Rating: PG (rude humor and mild violence)

Genre: Comedy, Family, Animation

Release Date: November 2, 2012

Before Watching the Movie: It would be nice to have an at least basic knowledge of older videogames before watching the movie, since they make so many references to them, and you'll miss some of the jokes.

Intro: I first heard about this movie over the summer at some point, I think when I saw Brave. The concept intrigued me, but I didn't have a lot of interest in seeing it. While animated movies can be good, they are not my favorite, and it seemed like the movie wouldn't be anything special. I also didn't have the gamer motivation to see it that a lot of my friends do. I like playing videogames, but I never get around to playing them and I definitely don't obsess over them. Anyway, a few of my friends invited me to go, so I went and saw it, with average expectations since it had good reviews. It turned out that the movie exceeded my expectations. Wreck-It Ralph, though it may not appeal to everyone, is very entertaining, completely original, funny, and a very cute movie that pays great attention to detail and is probably the best animated movie this year (I really can't say though. Brave is the only other one I've seen).

Plot: Sorry this may get a little lengthy, but it's a complex plot. Ralph is the villain in a retro arcade game called Fix-It Felix, where he wrecks a building and Felix fixes it again. Felix (McBrayer) gets all the awards and love, and after a while, Ralph (Reilly) feels rejected and wants some recognition. Unable to get any from his own game mates, he decides to leave his game in the arcade and try to he a hero in others to show them he, the bad guy, can be a good guy. He goes into a first-person shooter called "Hero's Duty" to get a medal. After getting it, he gets into trouble by piloting a spaceship out of the game and crashing---with the alien from the other game---in a candy-related racing game called Sugar Rush. He loses his medal and it gets taken by a character in Sugar Rush named Vanellope (Silverman), who uses it as a coin to enter the race she had previously been prevented from racing in, since she glitches. Ralph soon realizes he and Vanellope both want some recognition in their respective games, so he teams up with her so he can get his medal back, since the winner of the race gets all the coins, including Ralph's medal, in winnings. Soon, Ralph begins to endanger his game along with Sugar Rush, so he, along with Felix and the commander, Calhoun (Lynch) from the first-person shooter, need to save both games from ultimate destruction, which is being unplugged.

Things people may find “objectionable”: There's a little violence, especially in the scenes involving the first-person shooter game, but there's no blood or gore at all. The violence is all pretty mild. There's also some toilet humor, which shouldn't offend anyone. You really shouldn't worry about any of this unless you have a kid under like 6 years old.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Animation: 9/10. While it isn't as visually gorgeous as Brave and went for the more unrealistic look, Wreck-It Ralph featured some pretty good animation. It was more subtle, but you could tell especially with the scenes with the first-person shooter that the animators knew what they were doing. It was also cool that at times the filmmakers transitioned between classic videogame 8-bit graphics to the computer-animated graphics. What was also neat is having some characters move exactly like they would in their game, like they did with the residents of the building Ralph always destroys. The way they made characters glitch was also really cool.

     -Acting (Voices): 9/10. Good voice acting. They definitely chose good voices for each character. Vanellope's voice got a little annoying at times, but otherwise I had no complaints, and I think that's not even the voice actor's fault. I think the editors heightened the pitch a little. There's no way Sarah Silverman talks that high in real life.

     -Writing: 9/10.

Ralph at a Bad Guy-Anonymous meeting. It's subtle jokes and references
like this that make the movie so enjoyable.

          -Story: 10/10. A reason I liked Wreck-It Ralph is its originality. I'd have to say that this is one of the most original plots I've seen in a new movie for a while, when every Hollywood story is an adaptation of something else or slave to some formula. It's really refreshing to see new ideas in Hollywood. It was also nice to see how unpredictable the story was. As I've probably mentioned many times in reviews, I think this is one of the most important qualities a movie should have.

          -Script: 8/10. Not a half bad script. Wasn't the best ever written, but it was decent. They wrote in some funny lines too. for example, one character says, "Ralph can't be serious," which is followed by a cut to Ralph saying, "I've never been more serious about anything in my life."

     -Music/Score: 7/10. Pretty good, but didn't stick out to me, probably because it was often overpowered by dialogue and/or sound effects.

     -Power/Emotion: 8/10. You do feel for Ralph and the other characters, especially at the beginning. The characters are pretty relatable and likable, since the goal of both Vanellope and Ralph is just to be recognized and liked, which are things nearly everybody wants. You also feel for ralph when he has to make decisions

     -Adrenaline: 7/10. Animated movies tend not to thrill me as much as live-action ones, but Wreck-It Ralph does a pretty good job with this.

     -Intelligence: 10/10. Probably my favorite thing about Wreck-It Ralph is all the references it makes to videogames or other things. It adds a nice layer of deeper humor intended to entertain the parents as well as the kids. For example, one character has a glitch and she explains this to another character by saying she has, "Pixlexia." It's offhand comments and references like this that make the movie as enjoyable as it is. I think I laughed at as many if not more of these jokes than I did the main humor.

     -Humor: 8/10. The movie wasn't strictly a comedy like Airplane, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Blazing Saddles are, but it had some pretty funny moments. Like I said earlier, the funniest moments come from all the subtle jokes and references written into the script to entertain the older audience. This is probably the second-funniest movie I've seen all year only to Ted. It's sad that there aren't that many new, great comedies coming out any more. It seems new comedies go for dumbed down bedroom or gross-out humor and/or make fun of pop culture. While these things can be funny in the short term, the great comedies in movie history all have smart, universal humor. I'm glad to see Wreck-It Ralph try for this type of humor. If only all comedies would. Anyway, that's my two cents on comedies. Moving on...

     -Best Credit: None. All of the minor characters in Wreck-It Ralph are cameos by famous videogame characters, so none of them have original names. 

     -Final Score: Wreck-It Ralph is a very cute and enjoyable movie. It's one of those great movies that is pretty universal, as it can entertain both kids and adults, providing smart humor for both audiences. While Wreck-It Ralph isn't the best movie of the year (See Avengers, Argo, Lincoln, and Skyfall), it's definitely worth viewing. I'd recommend this to anyone who remotely considers themselves a gamer or wants an animated and/or family movie that is universally appealing. This is definitely one of, if not the best animated movie of the year.

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