{"id":17590,"date":"2014-05-23T16:58:07","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T20:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=17590"},"modified":"2015-12-03T17:07:52","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T22:07:52","slug":"wreck-it-ralph-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/23\/wreck-it-ralph-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Wreck-It Ralph (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WreckItRalph\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You have to appreciate the kind of world that \u201cWreck It Ralph\u201d creates, paying homage to the vintage video games of the gamer culture, and building on that to introduce some very entertaining characters, with some complex issues about self worth, and what defines them. Though very derivative, \u201cWreck It Ralph\u201d is a fun movie, especially for an ex-gamer like myself, and the director and writers really keep their target audience in view, while also giving some nods to the folks that grew up with the classics, offering endless Easter Eggs that help flesh out this rather unique tale of a bad guy seeking to show that he\u2019s much more than a destructive force.<\/p>\n

John C. Reilly is great as title character Wreck It Ralph, a villain in the popular arcade game \u201cFix It Felix Jr.\u201d As a character programmed to perpetually battle Felix, he feels under appreciated and misunderstood, especially now that the game is thirty years old and Felix is garnering all the credit. Seeking his own day in the sun, Ralph ventures out in to other games, swearing to claim his own gold medal. While jumping through various worlds, he claims a medal from the first person shooter \u201cHero\u2019s Duty,\u201d and accidentally crashes in to the world of \u201cSugar Rush,\u201d a kart racing game. There, he comes across another misunderstood reject, the glitch prone character Vanellope (the hilarious Sarah Silverman), a clever and mischievous young girl who steals Ralph\u2019s medal to compete in the racing game for a trophy and her own form of respect. While there, the aliens from \u201cHero\u2019s Duty\u201d begin infesting the world, and Ralph figures out how to help Vanellope win the race, and get his medal back.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile heroine of \u201cHero\u2019s Duty\u201d Calhoun is on the hunt for Ralph, along with Fix It Felix Jr., anxiously trying to get Ralph back before their game is unplugged forever. \u201cWreck It Ralph\u201d is a fun movie, but often tends to lose its focus and meanders, which prevents it from rising above the level of merely a good film. Once Ralph enters \u201cSugar Rush,\u201d his journey is completely pushed in to the background in favor of Vanellope\u2019s world and her own dilemma about racing, building her own car, and trying to find out why King Candy is trying to keep her from obtaining her goals. A lot of the energy carries over in to Vanellope\u2019s own obstacles, giving the movie the sense that the movie really belongs to Vanellope, while Ralph\u2019s own story was tacked on to appeal more to young boys. For a better portion of the movie, Ralph is merely a supporting character, while Vanellope really claims the film for herself as the heroine and the true protagonist seeking self-worth.<\/p>\n

And, while the film itself strives to deliver something of merit to the video gamers of the world that grew up with Dig Dug and QBert, \u201cWreck It Ralph\u201d is really nothing I haven\u2019t seen before. It\u2019s very much derivative of \u201cToy Story,\u201d and wears that on its sleeve. I\u2019d consider Rich Moore\u2019s film something of an unofficial iteration and spin off of \u201cToy Story,\u201d where the more modern youth\u2019s favorite toys were video games, as opposed to space man figures, and dinosaurs. \u201cWreck It Ralph\u201d even garners the same kind of narrative about self aware entities kept alive in their own meta-world, a misunderstood individual in that world, and a journey that reveals a pair of mismatched characters to bond and transform in to unlikely heroes. As flawed and derivative it may be, \u201cWreck It Ralph\u201d is still a very fine animated fantasy with a keen sense of creativity and wit that hooks audiences in with engrossing characters, and near endless cameos from video game characters.<\/p>\n