Tell me a story

When you were a kid and you’d go to the local arcade, did you ever stop to wonder what the video game characters did after you finished playing the game? Probably not, unless of course you were a particularly imaginative kid. You probably just assumed they did nothing because they weren’t thinking beings possessing their own will and volition. Boy were you wrong. Sit down and get ready to have your minds expanded. Wreck-It Ralph  and I are about to educate you.

Wreck-It Ralph posits that once the video game users have gone home and the shop owner has shut down for the night, that’s when the characters really come alive, but not Night at the Museum style. Instead of leaving their games to enter our world, they remain in a virtual world, a world behind the arcade screens, where all the characters interact. Only now they can do whatever they want.

See when a kid is playing their game, it is the character’s job to respond to all the actions the kid makes via joystick. In Ralph’s game, his job is to continuously destroy an apartment building that was erected over his former home. The user controls Fix-It Felix Jr.,  whose job it is continuously repair the damages that Ralph makes. Felix (voiced by Jack McBrayer) plays the hero. Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) plays the villain. Plays is the key word. Ralph isn’t really a bad guy. He just got stuck with a bad guy job. You would think that people would understand that, but the building inhabitants forsake him and pour their love onto Felix only.

The movie starts with Ralph finally getting tired of this unappreciated life. From the pile of bricks and garbage that he calls home (who lives on a pile of bricks?!), Ralph watches through the building windows as Felix lives the life that he wants. He even attends a therapy group for video game villains to find some peace with his role. It’s a great scene, especially if you’ve always wanted to see your favorite baddies interacting. Gotta love crossovers.

Yet as funny as the support group is to us, it’s not enough for Ralph. He needs appreciation and respect, and he needs them now. So he leaves his game to win himself a medal, which is usually reserved for a video game hero once he’s made it to the end of the game. The problem with leaving your game is that if you aren’t back when the arcade reopens, when a kid goes to play the game, a very important character is missing. They report it to the manager, the manager says the game is out of order, no one else can play it, and soon the manager sends the game away, usually to be replaced by a newer game. That’s why once Ralph leaves, Felix has to go after him.

Ralph ends up in all sorts of trouble. Why wouldn’t he? He’s quite a bumbling giant of a man. He spends most of the time outside his came in a racing game called Sugar Rush, which is as saccharine as it sounds. The racers have names like Taffyta Muttonfudge and Crumbelina De Caramello. The virtual crowd that watches the races is made of smiling, laughing pieces of candy. You might need to see a dentist after watching the movie.

In the game Ralph encounters a character named Vanellope. She’s a tiny, cute, inquisitive, annoying girl and she’s appropriately voiced by Sarah Silverman. She is exactly what you imagine Sarah Silverman was like as a child. Vanellope needs Ralph’s help to race in the game, and Ralph needs Vanellope’s help to win a medal. Will they become friends? Will Ralph get his medal? Will Felix get Ralph back to their game in time?

This is a cartoon movie, so you can easily guess how it all ends. But the story contains a twist that I didn’t see coming, which is actually pretty awesome for a kids movie. The whole movie is rather awesome. The story is good with a message about accepting yourself and not seeking validation through others’ opinions. The characters are interesting and funny. The voicework is rather phenomenal, particularly Silverman and McBrayer. Jack McBrayer’s voice is a cartoon voice already. So it was good to actually see it linked up with a cartoon. Silverman and Reilly have really good chemistry, or should I say voice chemistry?

The movie looks spectacular. I love how they take you inside the video game and show you what a 2D world looks like from the inside where the characters see another dimension. It’s even cooler watching the movie in 3D because it adds even more dimension. And the 3D is done well here. Very complementary to the film. The details in this movie are beautiful. Sugar Rush pops with colors and vibrancy. The inhabitants of Felix’s building are small 8-bit characters and the way they move in this movie is super fun to watch. All their actions are jerky and immediate. It’s hard to explain satisfactorily, but see it for yourself. I guarantee amusement.

I loved this movie. I had a ball watching it. The theater contained mostly adults when I went to see it, and I think I laughed more than the few kids that were there. Maybe that’s bad for the kids, but that’s good for me. Overall I was enamored by the creativity they brought to this movie. I saw Wreck-It Ralph and Life of Pi a few days apart, and right now I’m in this place where I just love movies. Movies made this well with this much creativity just make me feel so good. I don’t experience amazement as much as I’d like when watching movies, so it’s great to have that feeling twice in a row. It’s in cases like these where watching a good movie feels like getting a gift. That’s why I’ll never complain about movie ticket prices. I’d gladly pay more than my $11 to $13 for these experiences. Okay, enough gushing. Go see Wreck-It Ralph and have a great time.

Oh and don’t miss the Disney animated short before the movie. It’s sweet as all hell.

Wreck-It Ralph
Director: Rich Moore (The Simpsons, The Critic, Futurama)
Writer: Phil Johnston (A Thousand Words [Short], Cedar Rapids), Jennifer Lee, Rich Moore, Jim Reardon (Tiny Toon Adventures, Wall-E)