Wreck It Ralph
I think I should change my movie going approach. I believe I’m gonna have to be like the Seed and not listen to any reviews. I read a review over at The AV Club that mentioned The Incredibles in their review for Wreck It Ralph. I believed that going into the theatre I was going to be treated to as awesome an animated film as The Incredibles. Not really. Good but not great. Perhaps from reading the review and having The Incredibles in mind, my expectations for the film was too high. If I hadn’t read that review, I would not have been disappointed by a decent film.
Wreck It Ralph is about Wreck It Ralph, the villain of a Donkey Kong, Jr. ripoff called, Fix It Felix, Jr. He hates being the villain, because he gets no respect. He decides that being a bad guy is not for him and he wants to be a good guy. To accomplish that he believes that he must win a medal, and the only place to get it is in some other game than Fix It Felix, Jr. So Ralph goes and gets a medal, but also experiences other games especially a Mario Kart ripoff called Sugar Rush. Ralph must earn the respect to be worthy of a medal. He must learn that sometimes being bad is good.
There was plenty to like about Wreck It Ralph. For one thing, a lot of the playful homages to video games were subtle something that a Dreamworks animated film would beat over the audiences heads. You’ll laugh at the 8bit Niceland characters moving like 8bit animated sprites. You’ll want to play that level of Mario Kart that is Sugar Rush. You’ll also like to think that Vanellope Schweetz is Ellie from Up!. And if you stay to through the credits, you’ll hear Jpop in pure unadulterated form: AKB48 singing the theme to the Sugar Rush game. C’mon, Jpop!
Definitely one of the better animated films, but still no The Incredibles.
3 of 5 stars.
The Paperman short, now that’s another story.
