READ: ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ Review

Simply put: Wreck-It Ralph is a lot of fun. That could be my review of the film right there, but it needs to be more than 10 words even though you probably stopped reading right after that line.

Remember a few months back when the trailer premiered online? It’s a moment that I can remember the time/place when I watched it and had to contain my excitement since I was at work. Since then a lot of expectations have been put on this film and I think that’s usually done with something so nostalgia heavy as this. Expectations are/were heavy because the film needed to cater to a lot of people: fans of videogames, children, parents, teenagers, etc… Well, not so much needs to, really, but does and it does it well.

Wreck-It Ralph is, by design, a Disney film through and through… but there a lot of Pixar qualities to it, of course, and the comparisons to the first Toy Story movie aren’t outrageous. The entire time I was watching the film, it’s all I could think about. When you’re a kid, all you can wonder is if your toys/possessions/attachments that are inanimate recognize your passion towards them, if that makes any sense. This is why the first Toy Story is a modern classic, because it captured your childhood. I can watch the first Toy Story now at 22-years-old and look at the Buzz Lightyear action-figure I got when I was kid (which has my name at the bottom just like Andy’s because I’m amazing like that) and wonder if it’ll move when I turn around. Wreck-It Ralph, for the most part, captures that same essence and does what Toy Story did for me as a kid, for this generation.

There is this wildly large video game loving generation out there that feels this way about Sonic the Hedgehog and other famous videogame characters. But even if you didn’t visit an arcade everyday or you don’t get the “blow on it like you did a Nintendo game” reference (which, if you don’t, we can’t be friends) Ralph will still entertain you beyond the nostalgia. This is what makes it so successful; it could’ve included every famous and classic videogame character ever, but it doesn’t. The film forges it’s own path in the videogame genre and becomes it’s own while successfully including famous faces like Pac-Man and Bowser and what not, but it becomes more than that as the movie goes on. By the end of the movie (which moves very quickly) you’ve reached the ending you knew was coming but regardless of the typical Disney storyline, you cannot help but smile.

Wreck-It Ralph is a wonderfully animated, gloriously entertaining film that – and I really hate myself for saying this so it’s okay that you do too – is for all ages. It really is. The voice acting is wonderful from the entire cast, but it’s Jane Lynch and Jack McBrayer who do wonders with their characters. Please, do not go in expecting this to be a revelation. It is not. Those are so rare these days because the field of animated films is so expanding and there are so many now and Pixar made all the revelations already, and that’s FINE. Sometimes all you need is a movie to make you smile, be very good and just entertain you. Wreck-It Ralph does all of that (and some more).

Side note(s): when I say the line “… It’s not her fault she was programmed with the was programmed with the most tragic back-story” is the line of the year, I mean it. Also: Paper Man (the short before the movie) is one of Disney’s best, and my favourite. And: stay for the credits. There is no extra scene; they are just really well done. Lastly: for Halloween I went as Ralph. Enjoy.