When are you too old to like cartoons? When are you supposed to put on the big boy pants, and no longer enjoy watching kids films? With Pixar and Dreamworks making films that appeal to both adults and kids, it’s ok for you to like them. The industry is making them for you also, right? I have noticed in the past few years, the declining quality of work put into the computer animated films produced by Disney. The last Pixar film I liked was Toy Story 3, it was compelling and masterfully done, but it also didn’t get silly by going to “kiddy.” And guess what? everyone enjoyed watching it. Sure, Toy Story 3 got a little dark in the end, but it had a heart-warming story, and you actually felt something for some plastic toys that talk. How amazing is that?
Wreck-it-Ralph is a trick; a gimmick to try and get the adults who love video games to come see their movie. In reality, Wreck-it-Ralph is a Disney princess movie. The film is set in an arcade, and we take a deep look into the lives of the video games characters after the arcade closes and the arcade characters come to life. The characters can use the “surge protector” that all of the games are attached to, and go into other games and interact with other game characters. Ralph is not very happy being the villain in his own arcade game, as he is tired of being thrown off the roof, over and over; no one seems to like him. He’s a villain, so people scorn him.
The film has many quick video game references that only old school gamers will get: “Aeris Lives” painted on the subway wall, or Q-bert being homeless in the surge protector area. This is a ploy to get older gamers to want to go see this film. Too bad you spend 80% of the film in a game called Sugar Rush, a fictional game of sugar-themed cart racing. Disney had so much potential to do so much with other, real-life games and ideas for this new world, yet we spend it in sicky sweet sugar land. I thought it was funny at first, but after about 40 minutes in there, you just want to go to another game, or another movie.
For the next paragraph I will do some SPOILERS, please just skip this one and move onto the next. Ralph no longer wants to be the villain, so he leaves the game, in search of a “medal” the thing that will make him be respected by the other game characters. The plot of the film progresses and in the end, the other characters realize that they need Ralph for the game to work, duh. Ralph comes back, and resumes his duties as a “bad guy” because he is needed for the game to work. Here is my problem with this idea: One, it sounds like Ralph didn’t really learn anything, and that the other characters in the game are the ones that need to wise up, they need him, and Fix-it Felix and the other toons in Ralph's game never say to him, “Ralph we need you and we are sorry for how we treated you.” Because really, he just wants to be liked and not hated for what he does, they are the dicks that don’t realize they need him until he’s gone. Two, his realization is that he needs to do his job, even if its being a bad guy? Maybe I am reading too much into it, but doesn’t that just mean, the world needs bad guys to work. He has a part to play and that is to destroy the building, it’s ok, because someone has to do it. END SPOILERS
I was talking with one of my friends after the movie, and we both love video games, and were excited to see this film. But as we started to talk about our gripes and problems with how it is too “kiddy” or “sweet,” I started to realize: are we just the wrong demographic? Are we the target audience? Because this film sure does take a Disney Princesses turn, and maybe we are not supposed to like it. This film is for kids, not 30-somethings that will get all the video game references. But then this thought made me mad, then why they hell did they put that part into the movie? They had such potential and they ruined it with cute overload. They got the gamers in the theaters, only to shift the movie into a simple minded, poop joke. One more gripe: this film is more or less a rehash of Toy Story, the idea that our “toys” are doing things while we are sleeping, almost the same premise, down to the characters getting back their place before the humans see them. Heres an idea: what do our video game consoles do when you are not playing them? Couldn’t Ralph have gotten out of the arcade and seen the massive online gaming community? What would that mean when they can talk to the world of video game characters, no just the small town ideal, of the arcade world.
Although Wreck-it-Ralph has some clever ideas, and some fun parts, the overall movie is kind of a let down. Being a film and video game fan, I am very disappointed with how this turned out.
The Rating System
Production (Directing, Editing, Music) 3-5
Story (Plot)2-5
Characters (Likability, Acting) 3-5
Writing (Dialogue, Cleverness) 3-5
Emotions (Was it; Fun, Scary, Sad, Do I care) 2-5
Over all score 13-25
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