(Movie Review) Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

I remember when I got my first console gaming system. It was a Coleco Vision and it allowed me to play “state of the art” games like Donkey Kong, Mouse Trap, and I believe that there was an E.T. game in there too. Then we moved on to Atari, Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, etc. My Saturday mornings were always filled with equal parts video games and cartoons. So when I first heard of Wreck-It Ralph being in the works I was really excited to see it. Sometimes a movie just hits you right and the idea of it just “works”, and apparently the idea hit everyone right…because it now sits as Walt Disney’s Animation Studios largest debuting movie ever.

Storyline: Wreck-It Ralph (Reilly) is tired of being the “bad guy”. He is an underappreciated character in an arcade game called Fix-It Felix, Jr. While the rest of the people in his game love Felix (McBrayer) they treat Ralph like a villain and it soon begins to hurt Ralph’s feelings. On the 30^th anniversary of their video game Ralph returns to find that the characters in his game are having a celebration and did not invite him. When he casually invites himself in, and then wrecks the party, the people make a point to tell him that he will never be a winner like Felix. So Ralph goes on a mission to prove them wrong. He leaves his video game and begins to game hop in the hopes of winning a gold medal to bring back to the people in his game and to prove that he can be a hero too.

I absolutely loved this movie. I giggled during the whole thing. It’s bright, really well made, funny, and the voice acting is perfect. For the first time in my life I can say that I loved something that Sarah Silverman (voice of Vanellope von Schweetz) has been in. Her character was beyond cute and really helped make the movie what it was.

One other thing that I loved was the inclusion of so many characters from past popular video games. Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros., Pac Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, Frogger, Mortal Kombat, and Q*bert all are represented at some point in this movie. I just thought that it was a really nice touch and that it gave the movie a Who Framed Roger Rabbit quality that I really was not expecting.

Worth the admission? Without a doubt! This movie hits the spot, especially after the last few weeks of sitting through disappointing films at the theater. It’s a very touching and well-made movie. Kudos to Disney’s Animation Studio. They have consistently put out film after film of the most imaginative animated movies in history. This movie, in my humble opinion, is the best one yet. Make sure to go see it!