We saw Wreck it Ralph last weekend, in a nice theater in Jersey, in 3-D. Was lots of fun, clever, charming, etc. But is it the beginning of another rebirth for Disney Animation?
I'm not a whiz at forecasting. Certainly there's a lot of marketing/branding potential in a movie about video games, but there's no way I can tell if the next Disney films will do as well. What I can tell you is that, watching the film, I wasn't as blown away as I thought I'd be.
The film's story is a very good variation on the midnight-in-toy-shop theme that animators have been using since the old days. (Kids, that doesn't mean Toy Story.) Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly), the Fix-it-Felix Jr game villain, is a working-class Joe who, after two decades, is tired of being the outsider. All he wants, just once, is to get a medal, like the zillions that Felix has. Seizing an opportunity when a soldier from a military game passes out (in the Tap-It game's bar!), Ralph goes to the soldier's game, which involves trying to kill as many bugs as possible. Seeing a medal in the bugs' next, Ralph seizes it, and eventually takes off in a military vehicle through the electric wire conduits that act like subway trains... and ends up in the ultra-sweet race-car game Sugar Rush, set in a land that makes Candy-Land look like Oatmeal-ville.
Ralph loses his medal, and it's found by Penelope Von Schweetz, voiced with annoying charm by Sarah Silverman. She wants to participate in the game's overnight race to determine who will be visible in the next day's game. She uses Ralph's medal as a coin to get herself on the board, but because she is a glitch, she's not supposed to race, and the rest of the community, led by King Candy, will do whatever it takes to keep her out of the race. Recognizing her as a fellow outsider, Ralph and Penelope become friends; he helps her build a go-cart, but then the worm turns: the King explains that if the glitch gets to be part of the videogame, the plug will be pulled from it. (Ralph's own game is in danger of being unplugged, too, because of his disappearance.) Ralph is forced to decide between giving his friend what he wants, and doing what he thinks is the right thing for the game community.
There's also another wrinkle: Ralph accidentally brought a cybug with him into Sugar Rush, and it's been laying eggs underground that will lead to Armageddon for the game...and possibly the whole arcade! You know, like that.
The videogame effects are terrific but not overwhelmingly so. The old-school games are lovingly reproduced; the movements of the dwellers in the apartment Ralph wrecks move with hilarious simplicity. Sugar Rush is dazzling, and the military game is spot-on, too. It's a very good movie, and it might jumpstart an animation studio that has had some mixed success in recent years. But Disney Animation is not in as bad a shape as it was in the 1980s, when The Little Mermaid began the Mouse's renaissance. Disney itself is a gigantic media empire now, with an entire animation studio under its wing in Pixar, whose founder John Lasseter is now running Disney Animation (and is responsible for Ralph). The expectations are not as big for Ralph, but it was touted as a new beginning, much the way Little Mermaid was. I don't see that new beginning but I did see an enjoyable film.
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