Wreck-it Ralph

Dir: Rich Moore

2012

****

I grew up with 8 bit and then 35 bit games and Pixar/the Wreck-it Ralph team explore that nostalgia brilliantly. I loved the story and the characters, I thought the three different worlds and the very clever Game Central Station were brilliantly imagined too. It is a shame that more real games weren’t featured – and also surprising given all of the famous toys that missed out on the Toy Story films – but there were enough there to keep it relevant and familiar. However, the story is about far more than just old games. It all begins at Litwak's Family Fun Center & Arcade. When it closes at night, the various video game characters leave their normal in-game roles and socialize in a power strip. Wreck-It Ralph, the antagonist of the game Fix-It Felix Jr., is ostracized by its other characters for being the game's villain, while the titular hero Felix is praised and awarded medals. After being excluded from the game's thirtieth anniversary party thrown by the inhabitants, Ralph announces that he is tired of being mistreated and will earn his neighbors' respect by winning a medal. However, by doing this, he is risking going "Turbo" - a term coined when notorious auto-racer Turbo attempted to take over RoadBlasters, a more popular racing game, which resulted in both of their games being unplugged. Ralph learns he can obtain a medal from the first-person shooter, Hero's Duty. After disrupting a game session, Ralph scales the game's central beacon and obtains a medal, only to hatch a Cy-Bug, a dangerous monster from the game. Ralph and the Cy-Bug stumble into an escape pod, which is launched out of the game, and crash land in Sugar Rush, a candy-themed kart racing game. With Ralph missing, his game is labelled as malfunctioning and faces being unplugged. Felix, upon learning from Q*bert that Ralph has left his game, ventures to Hero's Duty and allies with the game's heroine, Sergeant Calhoun, to retrieve Ralph and the Cy-Bug. A little girl, Vanellope von Schweetz, steals Ralph's medal to buy her way into the nightly race that determines which characters are playable the next day, but King Candy, the ruler of Sugar Rush, forbids her from racing because she has glitches that cause her to teleport erratically. Ralph and Vanellope agree to work together to retrieve his medal and help her win a race. They build a kart and hide out at Diet Cola Mountain, an unfinished race track, where Ralph teaches her to drive. King Candy hacks the game's code to obtain Ralph's medal, and offers it to Ralph in exchange for preventing Vanellope from racing. He claims that if Vanellope wins and becomes playable, her glitches will lead to Sugar Rush being unplugged; unable to leave the game because of her glitch, Vanellope will be left to die while King Candy and his subjects become homeless in the arcade. Ralph reluctantly agrees and destroys Vanellope's kart. Heartbroken, she declares he "really is a bad guy" and runs off distraught. Upon returning to his game, which has been evacuated in anticipation of it being unplugged the next morning, Ralph notices Vanellope's image on the side of the Sugar Rush cabinet and realizes she was meant to be a playable character. Meanwhile, Felix and Calhoun search Sugar Rush for Ralph. Felix falls in love with Calhoun, but she abandons him when he inadvertently reminds her of her late fiancé who was murdered by a Cy-Bug on their wedding day. Felix is later imprisoned in King Candy's castle, but Ralph frees him and Vanellope, and Felix fixes the kart. Calhoun discovers a swarm of Cy-Bug eggs underground, which hatch and start devouring the game. Vanellope participates in the race, but is attacked by King Candy. Vanellope's glitch reveals he is actually Turbo, who took over Sugar Rush and displaced Vanellope as the main character. Vanellope glitches to escape Turbo, who is then eaten by a Cy-Bug. Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun evacuate the game, but Vanellope is trapped due to her glitches. When Calhoun points out that the Cy-Bugs can be attracted and destroyed by a beacon of light as in Hero's Duty, Ralph decides to make Diet Cola Mountain erupt, replicating the beacon. Ralph is confronted by Turbo, now fused with the Cy-Bug that devoured him. Ralph makes the mountain erupt and falls into its depths to sacrifice himself, but Vanellope saves him using her glitching ability. The volcanic beacon lures and permanently destroys the Cy-Bugs and Turbo. Vanellope crosses the finish line, rebooting Sugar Rush and restoring her status and memory as Princess Vanellope, the main character of the game, but keeps her glitching ability. Ralph and Felix return home and their game is spared. Felix and Calhoun marry, Vanellope gains popularity as a playable character, and a content Ralph gains respect from his fellow characters. The story gets a little over the top towards the ending but the part about Ralph trying to fit in is wonderful. There is nostalgia for people of my generation and there is a nice little message for the youngsters: reject stereotype. That is a very non-Disney thing to do and is why I love Ralph a little more than most Disney/Pixar characters. There is far too much product placement in the film, so much so that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a film about confectionery rather than old arcade games. John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman are perfect in their leading voice roles and the game looks just like it should for a film that tributes the games of that era. It is blatantly supposed to be Donkey Kong but I’m glad they didn’t make it Donkey Kong the movie. It’s a wonderfully whimsical idea that somehow becomes soothing greater, like a Seinfeld sketch becoming poetry or something. The details are great also, even when certain things were changed from real games, you knew exactly what was being referenced. Something for old and new fans combined.