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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The Last Airbender (2010) Review

THE LAST AIRBENDER (2010)
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by: M. Night Shyamalan, Michael Di Martino, Kathleen Kennedy, Bryan Konietzko, and Scott Aversano
Music by: James Newton Howard
Edited by: Conrad Buff
Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Dev Patel, Jackson Rathbone, and Aasif Mandvi
Runtime: 1 hour 43 minutes
Rating: PG (fantasy action violence)
Genre: Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Family
Release Date: July 2, 2010

A Quick Warning: I just want to let everyone know that for me, school has just restarted (gag), so I may not be able to get posts out as frequently as I was in the summer both because my time is limited and I don't tend to watch as many movies during the school year. I will try my best to get reviews out as frequently as I can, but I can't guarantee I'll get one out a week. Anyway, let's move on to the review, shall we?

Intro: When I was in 4th and 5th grade, nearly all of my friends watch the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender. While I never watched it, I heard it was a good show from a lot of people. Several years later, I heard they were making a movie out of it (I originally thought this was what the movie Avatar was going to be about). I didn't have much interest in seeing it until the b-movie fan in me saw that it got 6% on Rotten Tomatoes and was getting universally panned by reviewers. I remember during summer school that year, I was talking to someone about it. They said, "I kind of want to see Last Airbender, but I heard it's really bad." I replied, "That's WHY I want to see it." Anyway, I didn't get around to seeing it until this summer when I bought it from a nearby closing Blockbuster (in the same trip I got Pan's Labyrinth on). Unfortunately, it was nowhere near as good of a fulfillment of my money as Pan's Labyrinth. The Last Airbender has a lot of potential with an interesting and engaging premise and decent special effects, but it's horrible writing kills it and makes the movie wholly unsatisfying and frustrating to watch.

Plot: It's the same basic premise for the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you're familiar with the show, you probably won't need to read this section. For those who aren't here's the plot: In some world (not sure if it's this one or not) there are 4 nations: the earth, wind, water, and fire nations that all have special abilities to manipulate (or bend) the given elements. There is a group called the airbenders that can bend all 4 elements that keep all 4 nations in balance. However, the fire nation went on the offensive and killed the airbenders and is on the path to conquering the world. Then one day, a young girl (Peltz) and her brother (Rathbone) in the water nation find a boy (Ringer) frozen in the ice and after unfreezing him, they realize he's the last airbender (hence the title) who has been cryogenically frozen for 100 years and his name is Aang. Meanwhile, the fire nation finds out Aang exists and the exiled Prince Zuko (Patel) is hellbent on capturing and killing him. Aang must contend with the fire nation while completing his airbending training throughout the world.

Things people may find “objectionable”: It's a PG movie, so nothing major. There is some "fantasy violence," but it is all very mild. No blood or gore at all, which made everything a little unrealistic. Still, I can see them turning down the blood and gore to keep the movie a family film.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Cinematography: 7/10. Really not half bad direction. It's clear Shyamalan knows how to direct, and he has a couple of acclaimed films under his belt in The Sixth Sense and Signs (both are on my "to see" list). Now his ability to write is a different matter...

     -Acting: 6/10. The actors are really not that bad, just the words they say as part of the script are bad. I couldn't believe they got Aasif Mandvi, who is a comedian and a Daily Show correspondent, to play the main bad guy. Though he played a serious role, it was impossible for me to take a comedian playing the main bad guy seriously.

     -Writing: 1.5/10

          -Story: 2/10. Let me quickly differentiate the premise from the story so I don't look like a hypocrite by liking the premise and then giving the story section a 2. The premise of the movie, which for Last Airbender is really pretty cool, is the starting point for the story. The story is what happens to the characters following what the premise sets up. Anyway, the story is completely plagued by a stupid storyline that was so cliché and formulaic. The writing was awful and it undoubtedly ruined the movie. 

          -Script: 1/10. Terrible script to match the bad story. The lines are really stupid for the most part. Please, any studio that M. Night Shyamalan is working for, never let him write another script!!!

     -Special Effects: 9/10. The effects are all really pretty good. They're not the greatest in the world, but they really are pretty decent.

     -Music/Score: 4/10. Nothing special.

This Youtube Commenter got it right.

     -Power/Emotion: 3/10  Well, I can't say I cared that deeply about any of the characters. The plot was so formulaic that I really didn't have to be concerned with the safety of the main characters. For any aspiring writers out there, please keep in mind that if the plot is formulaic, it wrecks a lot of the ability of viewers to care for your characters. If it's really clear what's going to happen to the characters (as in, X person is going to live and/or X and Y person are going to fall in love), there's really no sense in getting to care about the characters' fates. If you add an element of unpredictability, suddenly the characters become more important to the viewer and they are much more likely to care about them. Anyway, that's exactly what Shyamalan's bad writing does, as it ruins a lot of my feelings for the characters just because it's so easy to see what's going to happen to them.

     -Adrenaline: 4/10. Though there are numerous action sequences, the movie ends up being pretty dull. This is probably for a few reasons. One is, as I explained at length in the previous section, that it was hard to care about the characters that much. Also, the millions of clichés in the script made the outcome of the fight scenes incredibly predictable, therefore making them less exciting since you pretty much know what's going to happen.

     -Stupidity: 5/10. Everything's really pretty solid. That is, except for the writing. The lines are incredibly stupid and the story is stupidly written.
     -Humor: 2/10. This isn't the point of the movie, but there's a couple mildly funny moments inserted obviously for comic relief.

     -Best Credit: Chris Brewster as "Kicking Firebender."
     -Final Score: The Last Airbender is a frustrating movie to watch. It is mainly this way just because it squanders so much potential for being good and it ends up being completely unsatisfying. The writing ruins the movie, as it is bad and extremely formulaic. If you're a fan of the show Avatar: The Last Airbender, I would not suggest watching it because you will likely be mad at how badly the movie messes up a really pretty cool concept. Even if you're not familiar with the show (like me), I don't recommend the movie, as it is just frustrating and unsatisfying to watch.

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Brave (2012) Review

Directors: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell

Writers: Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman, and Irene Mecchi

Producers: Pete Doctor, John Lasseter, Katherine Sarafian, and Andrew Stanton

Editor: Nicholas C. Smith
Animators: Simon Allen, Dovi Anderson, Jude Brownbill, Courtney Casper, Andrew Coats, Robb Denovan, Curran W. Giddens, Aaron J. Hartline, Tsung-Yin Hsieh, Jaime Landes, Ramiro Lopez Dau, Rich McKain, Erick Oh, Charlie Ramos, Jessica Sances, Mark Sanford, Michael Sauls, Benjamin Su, Saschka Unseld, Charlene Wang, Royce Wesley, and Stephen L. Wong

Music: Patrick Doyle

Starring (voices): Kelly MacDonald, Emma Thompson, and Billy Connolly

Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes

Rating: PG (Scary action, rude humor)

Genre: Animated, Adventure, Family

Release Date: June 22, 2012

Intro: While I am not a huge fan of Disney movies, I do have a lot of respect for Pixar, since their movies are almost always amazingly better than any animated feature any other company can produce, both story and effects wise. When I went to see this, I was expecting another amazing Pixar movie. Sadly, this was not the case for Brave. Though Brave is a good movie with incredible animation, it just doesn't live up to the high expectations Pixar movies receive, as a predictable story and a surprising lack of originality, usually two of Pixar's strengths, weigh the movie down.

Plot: In ancient, I guess it could be Middle Ages mythical Scotland, a kingdom has been divided into 4 sections by a devastating war. The kingdom has recently been reunited under King Fergus, the bear king, though three other clans still exist.  Anyway, the clans decide to meet so Fergus can marry his daughter, Merida, off to one of the other clans and further strengthen the bonds of the kingdom. Merida, however, is a reluctant princess, as she is an excellent archer who does not want to be married just yet. However, her mother, Queen Elinor, tries desperately to whip her into what she thinks a proper princess should be. Merida resists as much as possible until one day when the clans are in town, she runs away and stumbles upon a witch who gives her a potion to help "change her fate," so she gives it to her mom who eats it and the fate-changing potion turns out to be more of a problem than anything else for Merida.

Things people may find “objectionable”: It's a PG movie that's intended for families, so there's really nothing that bad in the movie. The only thing is some mild toilet humor, probably intended to make sure the movie got rated PG instead of G, since PG movies generally sell better than G movies.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Cinematography/Animation: 10/10. Stunning visuals. If it had not been for the cartoon-like characters, it would be hard to distinguish the animated scenery from real life scenery. It was that good. Even the characters, though they looked less real than the scenery, still had amazingly lifelike movements. What never ceases to amaze me about Pixar's animations is how realistically they can make the hair look, especially as it moves with the character. Having worked quite a bit with stop-motion animation in the past, I can imagine just perfecting the hair took weeks, if not months.

     -Acting (voices): 10/10. The voice actors were all good and fit the characters they were playing pretty well. I have to give it to Pixar, they do get the best for their voice acting.

     -Writing: 7/10. The script was good, though they overuse the phrase "change your fate." As for the story, I was a disappointed in the predictability and lack of originality. The story was fine and they did a pretty good job in telling it, but it was pretty easy to guess what was going to happen next, which is never a good thing for a movie script, especially for a movie studio in Pixar that usually has very original stories. There just didn't seem to be anything too surprising in the story, with no major plot twists.

     -Music/Score: 8/10. Nothing special in the way of music, it was mainly just Scottish-themed tunes, but the music did fit the movie well.

     -Power/Emotion: 6/10. Not as high as I expected, though after a while I became at least somewhat concerned for the characters. I think the predictability ruined some of my emotional response because I had a pretty clear idea of what was going to happen, so I wasn't that concerned for the characters I knew would live and end up happy.

     -Adrenalinw: 5/10. There were some fairly exciting moments, but they were not the intent of the film, as the movie focuses much more on the relationship between Merida and her mom.

     -Mind-Bendingness: 1/10. Doesn't really make you think that deeply, but then again, this is clearly not the intent of the movie.

     -Humor: 4/10. There were a few funny moments, but like adrenalin, comedy was not an emphasis of the movie.

     -Final Score: While it's not a bad movie by any stretch, Brave just doesn't compare to any of Pixar's classics and is not up to the level of movies the studio should be making. It's somewhat enjoyable, but it's not the engaging, emotional and clever kind of story Pixar has become famous for making. I hope Pixar is able to rebound some and go back to making the kind of great movies that everyone knows it for. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes animated movies just for the beauty of the animation. It could also function well as a family film.