Starring: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer
Wreck-It Ralph (Reilly) has been the bad guy in the popular arcade
game, Fix-It Felix for thirty years. Day in, day out he has to deal with being
thrown off an apartment building, whilst good guy Felix (McBrayer) gets all the
credit. Feeling dejected, Ralph goes “Turbo” and leaves his game looking to
claim a medal (and thus, be a hero) in another game. After stumbling through
first-person-shooter, Hero’s Duty, Ralph finds himself in the sickeningly sweet
racing game, Sugar Rush and meets Vannelope Von Schweetz (Silverman) who, as a
glitch, is not allowed to join in the races.
A mash-up of Toy Story (1995), TRON (1982), Who Framed Roger
Rabbit (1988) and Speed Racer (2008), Wreck-It Ralph is an imaginative film
which, if mishandled, could have gone spectacularly wrong. However, Disney
handles the feel capably and does what Disney does best. An exciting and fun story for youngsters with enough in-jokes and
heart for adults. Fittingly, the film plays with conventions and the actors are
often playing against types. This is perhaps most apparent for Sarah Silverman,
playing the sweet and precocious Vanellope, given Silverman’s controversial
reputation. However, she provides the film’s strongest acting performance.
Meanwhile, the villain in the piece is also kept as a surprise as
conventionally you would expect Felix (although, Jack McBrayer as a villain
would be very strange casting indeed) but this isn’t the case. The film is
wonderfully animated with the cartoon-styled animation meshing well with the
high-tech backdrop (unlike the aforementioned, Speed Racer). It would’ve been
nice if we could’ve seen more arcade game-based worlds or characters or perhaps
more radical shifts in animation styles, but the story and the animation
(though the 3D is almost negligible) make it worthwhile.
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