- If you ever found yourself wondering what motivates Donkey Kong and King Koopa to torment Mario, Wreck-It Ralph may be the video game-oriented movie for you. Its eponymous lead character, voiced by John C. Reilly, is a hulking brute tasked with destroying a pixelated apartment building that is inevitably repaired by the arcade game's real star, Fix-It Felix, Jr. (Jack McBrayer). Day after day, Felix earns accolades, medals, and pies for his efforts while Ralph is regularly rewarded with a ten-story tumble into the mud. If you think that's sad, you should see how the other video game characters treat Ralph after hours, when he is shunned at parties and forced to sleep in a garbage dump.
- Ralph's support group, populated by some recognizable evil scientists, zombies, and street fighters, humorously tries to convince Ralph that he can be "a badguy" without being "a bad guy." Still, his dissatisfaction in life leads Ralph to experiment with other games, such as the perilous first-person shooter Hero's Duty, where he is quickly chased off by the gruff Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch). It is in the saccharine Sugar Rush racing game, however, that Ralph makes his first real friend in the form of Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), a young, aspiring racer with a glitchy personality. Although the preposterous King Candy (Alan Tudyk) strives to keep Vanellope out of the race, video game enthusiasts might wonder how a glitch made it into public release in the first place. This movie provides an answer!
- In my opinion, Wreck-It Ralph is never better than in its opening scenes, where the movie mixes witty writing and arcade nostalgia to introduce the admittedly hilarious notion that video game characters have complicated offscreen lives. Gaming aficionados will no doubt appreciate, as I did, the film's subtle references to Rampage, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy VII, and Zero Wing, although at times you can almost hear the Disney accountants calculating whether it would be worth purchasing the full rights to more famous video game characters like Mario and Link. When the movie shifts entirely to Sugar Rush, however, it begins to resemble an average Pixar offering crossed with a hyperactive kid's cereal commercial. Fortunately, Rich Moore' direction is capable enough, the voice acting is strong enough, and the writing funny enough (everything Jane Lynch says is amazing) that you'll be willing to play along until the final screen.
- Also featuring voicework by Mindy Kaling, Joe Lo Truglio, Ed O'Neill, Dennis Haysbert, and Edie McClurg.
