Wreck-It Ralph

So, odds are you've heard of Disney's newest movie, Wreck-It Ralph. And I'm going to review it!

...Yes, seriously. I don't care if it's not a video game, it's close enough.

So, as I said earlier, Wreck-It Ralph is Disney's latest movie. It stars John C. Reilly as Wreck-It Ralph, the antagonist of the arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr. As the film begins, it is the game's 30th anniversary, and the characters of the game are all celebrating. All except Ralph, who's left all alone in the dump he calls home. When he tries to join the party, he's told, as a villain, they don't want him at the party. And so begins Ralph's quest to become a hero, leaving his game to try and prove that he's able to be a good guy.

So, I'm going to do this a little differently than usual, even accounting for the fact that this is a movie instead of a game. I'm going to look at this first as a gamer, and then as a film-goer. I'm not sure how well this is going to go, but I'm going to give it a shot.

So, as a gamer, this movie is a LOT of fun. Each of the game worlds visited has its own unique feel to it. There's the classic, Donkey Kong-like feeling of Fix-It Felix Jr., the dark Halo-ish feel of Hero's Duty, and the light, obviously-Mario Kart-inspired game that is Sugar Rush. They all feel like they're actual games, games that I would be perfectly happy to try my hand at playing.

And then there's the references. I've seen this movie compared to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in terms of cameos from famous characters, ranging from Q*bert to Street Fighter's Zangief to Sonic the Hedgehog, but I'd say it might just go a little further than that. Game Central Station, the 'hub' of the movie, has tons of graffiti in it referencing various games ('Aerith lives,' anyone?) and the lost-and-found in Tapper's bar (itself a reference) contains numerous subtle gags. And I'm more than willing to admit that there's probably a bunch more that I missed. So, yeah, as a gamer, this is a very fun movie to watch.

Now, as a film-goer, this movie... is still pretty fun. The writing isn't great, but for a kid's movie, it's enjoyable. And I will say this, the three acts are a little disjointed. The middle chunk of the movie didn't really progress the plot at all. It was good for character development, it definitely helped me feel closer to Ralph and friends, but the plot kinda got put on hold for a while to allow for this. This is one of my only complaints, though. The animation is good, least as far as I can tell, and the voice acting is VERY solid, and, ignoring act two and an admittedly-large-ish number of poop jokes, the writing is good as well. I definitely feel comfortable recommending this movie for movie-lovers, ESPECIALLY Disney-movie-lovers.

So, yeah, this movie is great, you should definitely go watch it. For the remainder of this post, I'm going to talk about the opening short.

Paperman was directed by John Kahrs, a former Pixar animator who made this as his directorial debut. The short tells the story of a young businessman who, after meeting an attractive woman at the train station before work on day, spends the rest of his work day trying to get her attention after spying her in the office building across the street. However, unable to yell without being noticed by his coworkers, his only option is to make paper airplanes out of his work and try to successfully launch one into the window of her room. And that's all I'm going to say on the plot.

Now, this short is easily one of my favorite Disney shorts ever*. It's really well-animated, and the love story between the two main characters is absolutely adorable. Despite not having a single spoken line at any point, you grow to character for the protagonist, wanting him to end up with the girl he has fallen in love with. I'm not going to lie, it may have rained a little bit in the theatre when I was watching it. At least, that's the best explanation I can come up with for why my eyes started to water up.

So, to wrap things up here, Wreck-It Ralph is a great movie, and you should definitely go see it.

Like, right now.

No, seriously, why are you still here? Go see it!

...

GO!

*Yes, even counting the Pixar shorts from before Disney bought them out.