Wreck-It-Ralph

     
          Dropped by Robert Miller
          PG, 1 hr. 32 min.
          Animation, Children, Comedy
          Directed by: Rich Moore
          Written by: Phil Jonston, Jennifer
          Lee, Rich Moore
          Staring: John C. Reilly, Sarah
          Silverman, Jack McBrayer
          Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk
          Released: November 4, 2012
          Walt Disney Pictures

A couple weeks ago, Rich Moore, first time full-length director of Walt Disney Pictures’ vintage video game-homage Wreck-It-Ralph, did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the website Reddit, which basically means a massive Q-and-A with a load of people online. Throughout the questions Moore gave a lot of quick, clever and playful responses that were—of course—hyping the film, but also revealing himself as an in-touch nerd and pop-culture pundit (basically, a kid in a grown-up’s body). Whether he was referencing his favorite retro video game (Pac Man) and his favorite modern one (Mario Kart), or revealing his long-awaited chance to play 2011′s hit video game Skyrim and more, his geekiness was showing.

Also, being that Moore has previously directed and produced of a number of television episodes from Futurama, to The Simpsons, to The Critic, he’s no stranger to humor, wit and pop culture references. So what happens when you take a director and throw him into his first full-length movie about video games and classic arcades? Answer: Wreck-It-Ralph, a story about its namesake Ralph (John C. Reilly), an apeish human character—much like Donkey Kong—from an 80s-era video game whose entire purpose in life is to climb up a large building and smash it to pieces as a small handyman character named Fix-It Felix Jr. (Jack McBrayer) fixes it window by window. Oh, and when children aren’t in the arcade getting Fix-It Felix up to the top of the building so he can earn his gold medal, Ralph lives in a big pile of bricks and rubbish while Felix and the rest of the building’s inhabitants party up in the penthouse. So when Ralph gets a little lonely and starts to feel unhappy about his life, he abandons ship (er, video game) and hops between consoles via Game Central Station to win himself a gold medal and prove that he can be a hero, too.

Sound a bit like Toy Story? A Bug’s Life? Wall-E? We have inanimate objects who grow tired of their life and seek a better one, insects and animals who grow tired of their life and seek a better one, robots that grow tired of their life and seek a better one, so why don’t we just add pixels to the mix for fun? One of the biggest hindrances to this movie so far is that it’s been classified countless times as a Pixar film, but it’s not, and it’s sort of unfair to compare it to the stream of stellar Pixar releases (let’s continue to forget Cars 2, if that’s all right) simply because it’s an animated movie. And the animation is great, anyway. With a mix between polished 3-D characters and ocassional two-dimensional pixelated ones, it drives home the geeky world from which they reside where they travel from video game, to station, to video game a’la power cords and power strips. The world is filled with references, such as a Final Fantasy graffiti-strewn wall (pay attention, fans), a Metal Gear Solid exclamation (!), a Halo-meets-Gears-of-War planet, the word “Jenkins” also located on a wall (really, a lot of these Easter eggs ended up as graffiti on walls somewhere), or a certain half-bald dubstep DJ at a party. But when you strip away references, Easter eggs, video game character cameos and the all-around gimmick of the movie’s idea, there needs to be more of a backbone. There needs to be a solid narrative, strong characters and a plot to pull through for.

It doesn’t give everything justice, but to sum it up, Wreck-It-Ralph felt like a really fun time with a wildly missed connection. When a majority of the story line ends up taking place in a cavity-clogged pink racing game called Sugar Rush, you begin to feel just a little deceived. I kept thinking to myself, “OK, this is great and all, but get out of there! See something else! Go somewhere new!” Part of the excitement of this movie in the first place is seeing all of the different video games (real and fictional), so I just wanted them to explore it some more, rather than harp on the same string.

Sugar Rush is also where Ralph meets Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) an annoyingly cute racing character who is considered a “glitch,” because . . . well, she glithces. Not being accepted by the other characters in the game, Vanellope sets out to win a race with the eventual help of Ralph as they find their end-game fantasies crossing paths. And really, with the exception of Alan Tudyk voicing a wonderful Mad Hatter-like character called King Candy, all of the voice actors are manageable but never outstanding. From Reilly’s big oaf of a character, to Silverman’s childish moxy, to McBrayer’s simple cluelessness, these actors play to their archetypes to a blind Tee. Tudyk, on the other hand, sparks a little playful banter and experimentation into the mix, which was much needed.

Wreck-It-Ralph got so caught up in its nostalgia, references and gimmickery, that it forgot to have a proper emotional tug. And rather than explore the best things it had going for it, it threw them away like a wink and a nudge to all of the video game fans who undoubtedly flocked to the screenings. Children will enjoy this film for Vanellope’s potty mouthed humor, the visuals and the overall prospect of their favorite entertainment mediums banding together, and certain adults will most likely appreciate the homages that only they will catch. But in the soon-to-be annals of 3-D animation, I don’t see this raising any standards or breaking any boundaries. It has all of the groundwork for a great concept and a great narrative, but it’s missing what made a plastic space solider, a mute robot and even a tiny clown fish all so endearing: a beating heart and living soul.

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Watch the trailer for Disney’s Wreck-It-Ralph below: