Review #580: 'Wreck-It Ralph' (2012)

With 'retro' very much in fashion these days, and the children of the late 1980's and 1990's now reaching an age where one can get nostalgic about one's childhood, it is the perfect time for there to be a film that harks back to early games consoles. After all, consoles such as the NES, Sega Mega Drive and the SNES, although now very amateur when compared to recent incarnations, were the godfathers of mass mainstream gaming, and a key form of entertainment growing up for the likes of me (I was born in 1984). Wreck-It Ralph, Disney's latest colourful crowd-pleaser, portrays both the demise of blocky finger-bashers, as well as celebrating their retro appeal. It's hook is that its main character, Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly), is a bad guy. He spends his days destroying an apartment block with his over-sized hands, while the hero of the game, Fix-It Felix, Jr. (Jack McBrayer), uses his magic hammer to fix Ralph's destruction, and therefore winning the game.

Fix-It Felix, Jr. is an old-school arcade game in a similar vein to Donkey Kong, a simple premise, existing solely for it's retro charm amongst modern shoot 'em-ups and dance-mat games. Treated badly by the game's inhabitants due to being the thug of the game, Ralph decides to leave to win a golden coin, cementing himself as a hero. He sneaks into a Halo-like alien shooter called Hero's Duty in which a tough female commander Calhoun (Jane Lynch) narrates to the player, but gets himself into trouble by accidentally taking an alien into another game during his escape with a golden coin. He lands in Candy Land, a colourful racing game with a similar sickeningly sweet feel to Mario Party, where glitch outcast Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) steals his coin and uses it to buy an entry into the main race. Seeing potential disaster for his game, the ruling King Candy (Alan Tudyk), tries to put an end to Vanellope's entry, but Ralph wants his coin back, and the only way to do that is to help her win.

Like the majority of Pixar's, sorry, Disney's output (John Lasseter acts as executive producer), Wreck-It Ralph has the ability to appeal to adults, as well as giving the squirts enough colourful imagery to keep their minds busy between whatever they get up to these days. Although it derives much of its humour from a reliance on the audiences' knowledge of retro computer games, the film has enough playful adult humour to appeal to a wider audience, and is most importantly sweet enough to engage the audiences emotions. Yet for people like me, who grew up on the likes of Super Mario World, Street Fighter II and Duck Hunt, Wreck-It Ralph proves to be an oddly touching lament of a time when games generally had a very basic premise, but were executed with such a charm and addictive quality, that they were entirely endearing.

An early scene that borders on genius sees Ralph in an AA-style meeting for computer game bad guys, with Bowser, Zangief and Clyde from Pac-Man offering support for our titular hero. Upon revealing himself as longing to play the hero, the group erupts, with Clyde going into panic mode the same way he did in Pac-Man. It's a celebration of computer game ticks, with the apartment-folk from Ralph's game moving in a sudden, glitchy fashion, and Felix making a boing sound when he jumps. In fact, it's this ingenuity that leads to the tragic story of Vanellope, who is a glitch in the system, who's potential participation in Candy Land could lead to the player's giving up on the game, causing it to go out-of-order and entering arcade obscurity. Facing this catastrophe, the games inhabitants can at least escape with their lives before the power switch is flipped, but Vanellope cannot exist outside the game, and will die with it.

It's this gentle sentimentality that makes Wreck-It Ralph so enjoyable. Pursuing Ralph is Calhoun and Felix, two contrasting game characters from two entirely different generations (Felix is smitten with her hi-def look), and start a bizarre love story that is as ridiculous as it is oddly touching. Thankfully, it is these types of moments and characters that you take away from the film, and not the overly familiar themes and narrative. Although the setting is unfamiliar and exciting, the plot shares a lot with the likes of Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Toy Story 3 (2010), and climaxes with a staple car-chase, something that seems to plague kiddie-film these days. But Wreck-It Ralph is undeniably irresistible and really quite clever, and although I would have liked to see more game-hopping ingenuity, there is enough here to sustain until the inevitable sequel comes along.


Directed by: Rich Moore
Voices: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie