Wreck-it Ralph is a 3D computer-animated film that was released on November 2nd 2012 in the United States. It documents the story of the titular ‘Ralph’ as he embarks on a quest to become a video game hero, after years of being the villain in the game ‘Fix-it Felix Jr.’
The film is very inventive and quickly establishes how everything in its world works and, for what its worth, seems very believable. If characters go outside of their game and die they will not come back. It tells the back-story of a renegade game hero called Turbo who sabotaged both his and that game out of jealously and it immediately establishes Ralph as a sympathetic character who is also very relatable to the audience and wins respect rather quickly.
Before anyone knew anything about it, people wondered if it would be a collaboration of characters doing quite a lot of things together, besides the first couple of scenes where things take place in a ‘Game Central’ where all the arcade characters go between games. The video game villains all meet together and discuss what they do, charmingly, it all takes place on a Pac-Man game board. All the little ‘in’ references to the video games is what caused the most smiles for audiences, like when Ralph is searching for a medal and he finds an exclamation mark from the game ‘Metal Gear Solid’. What I like about the movie is that, yes, it references things, but it doesn’t make it impossible for people who don’t know the obscure games from the 80s to understand the jokes, which is good.
A lot of people who I spoke to, thought the second act, where he enters the ‘Sugar Rush’ game is where it slows down and begins a very boring formula, I asked why, they suggested that it would have been better if Ralph was game-hopping to try and get his medal, the fact that he only went to two worlds was disappointing to them. To me, that would have been boring and very formulaic, I think the story they stuck to was more emotional and heartfelt. The movie plays out much differently and reaches and the aforementioned emotional level is something that I would have not expected to see. Moral dilemmas are brought up and dealt with accordingly, the story has quite an amazing plot twist that I did not see coming and the ending is a real tearjerker. It is a very powerful movie made for all ages.
Many people of the similar age group of mine seemed to have agreed that it would have been better to see many more cameos but I and one other lonely opinion was ‘if there were too many cameos it would have overshadowed the relationship between Ralph and Vanellope; which is the main focus.’ However, being defined as a modern classic, ‘Wreck-it Ralph’ serves as the ‘Toy Story’ for a current generation, which many think, should have won the Oscar for best animated film, an opinion I wholeheartedly agree with.
