Pretty much all of my friends are going nuts about this movie. “My favorite Disney movie”, “it’s the best non-Pixar Pixar-like movie made”, etc. And of course it appeals to video game geeks since it’s got a billion cameos in it.
— Alan
It was pretty cool. There’s a sequence near the beginning with an arcade through the years, as arcade cabinets are swapped out with newer games, that made my heart sing. Space Invaders begat Tapper begat Road Blasters begat Street Fighter 2 begat DDR, and it was good.
The story gets bogged down in typical kid’s animated movie “learn the true value of yourself” formula. There are long stretches in an ersatz Mario Kart level that got away from the movie’s spot-the-gamer-reference strengths. Plus I thought the adorable misfit girl was voiced by Maria Bamford. I spent half the movie admiring how the animators really captured her smile and her chirpy character voices. Then in the end credits I find out she was really voiced by dumb ol’ Sarah Silverman. Blech.
There’s one more weakness to the story. Wreck-It Ralph is depressed because he always loses to Jack McBreyer. But in “real” life, he should be happy that he eventually wins all the time. How easy of a game would it be if Fix-it Felix always got to the last level? Those kids’ quarters can’t go that far. I know that Donkey Kong, Bluto, Zaxxon, and those black hat assholes from Elevator Action always chortled about how they shook me down for my money. Maybe in the sequel Ralph can team up with the dog from Duck Hunt.
It’s a movie for kids that had not aged since the '80s. Its ideal audience would be the boy from Flight of the Navigator. Otherwise, people who read this forum. Check it out, but don’t expect Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
Also, the opening short, a black and white silent romance set in the intersection of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Street and Mad Men Avenue was really nice.
That short film at the beginning was creepy.
I enjoyed Wreck-It Ralph. It is true that the kids formula that Djscman mentioned is pretty ham handed at times, but it IS a kids movie. I enjoyed all of the little nods to different video games. I’m going to watch it again once it comes out on rental so I can pause it and try to spot all the characters and games they put in there. I also “lol’d” on quite a few different occasions.
Also, without google’ing, IMDB’ing, or wiki’ing, if you go watch it try to figure out which character was voiced by Alan Tudyk.
Woohoo!
Then in the end credits I find out she was really voiced by dumb ol’ Sarah Silverman.
D’OH!
I have no kid-related reason to see this, but it’ll go on the netflix queue as and when. I hope they include the short!
It was fun! There is a ton of Easter eggs…from characters in the background, to the graffiti , to lines of dialog that only ‘hardcore’ are going to get, as a gamer it was a ton of fun. Kids loved it, co-workers loved it,but my favorite part was only the co-workers sat through the credits…man are we conditioned by the Marvel movies…and yes there is a small something all the way at the end.
My kids loved the whole glitch thing, since to them glitches are what cheat codes were to us.
I saw this today and loved it. Might be my favorite animated film since Up.
One of the best times I’ve had in a theater all year. The movie has flaws, but I left loving every second of it anyway. The short was awesome too.
Wreck-It Ralph could be a Pixar movie. It’s that good!
Fixed that for you.
The movie was good. Great references and cute story a little to much sugar rush and Alan Tudyk is awesome although I had no idea it was him until the end.
I also wish it hadn’t spent quite as much time in Sugar Rush, front-loading most of the video game cameos and references, but otherwise I loved it. Chekhov left a lot of guns lying around, but they all worked together surprisingly well. And the graffiti might have been my favorite part too. “Shen Long was here!” “Aerith Lives!”
hahaha yeah the short certainly WAS good, but it just creeped me out.
[POSSIBLE SPOILERS]
I love movies that are able to show the story without any spoken dialogue. I thought it was very well done. It made me think of the beginning of WALL-E, which I loved. But I tried to put myself in the shoes of those characters seeing those paper airplanes doing what they were doing, and I figured I probably would have freaked out. It was like the beginning of a cheesy horror movie.
It rates about a 7. Good concept, nice callbacks, decent script, the voice active is solid, but the pacing is quite off. There are chunks of the movie where my daughter was totally disengaged and I was in the same boat. Pity since I think they were closing in on Pixar level but they needed a better editor.
I also really enjoyed this a lot, as did my kids. I don’t understand the hate for Sarah Silverman. You enjoyed the character she created, until you found out she created it? How the fuck does that work? I think both she and O’Reilly did a great job – I totally bought their relationship, which is the heart of the movie.
I was about to write up the silly little plot niggles I had, but as I was doing so I came up with sufficiently plausible explanations for each as to make it not even worth doing :-)
It was pretty good, but, yeah, too much time in Candyland. From the trailer I was expecting more game-hopping.
I do think it’s possible for the public persona that a performer creates to detract from the enjoyment of their work. For example, Ellen Degeneres leaves me cold and I found myself enjoying Finding Nemo less for that fact. Silverman creates a public persona that is, lets say, polarizing.
That said, she didn’t bother me and the boys and I enjoyed the movie throughout. Buying Pixar was a great move for Disney. Ever since Lassiter became an exec producer for their animated films, the scripts have improved and there is genuine emotion to the stories. I think I have enjoyed Bolt, Robinsons, and Ralph more than Ratatouille, Cars 2, and Toy Story 3. Brave could have come from either side.
Sure, but after the fact? People enjoyed the performance until they found out afterwards it was Silverman? That makes no sense.
As RickH says, she’s extremely polarizing. Performance aside, if you don’t like someone, you don’t like someone.
— Alan
People are just confusing the character she plays in her comedy routines as her real personality. I use to do that as well. As I’ve gotten older, enough people have surprise me that I try to keep an open mind. Don’t like her comedy, probably never will, but as an actress, she has done some ok stuff.
My only problem with Silverman is that she has a distinct enough voice (from hearing her comedy for some time) that I have difficulty losing her persona and just seeing the character she’s playing. But I have that problem with most celebrities in animated films if I’m familiar with them, so it certainly isn’t unique to her.
I agree completely. Starting with Bolt, I started to see Pixar touches in the Disney animated features. In particular, Pixar seems to be good at setting up where you think the storyline is going, then pulling the rug out from under you at the last minute. (Ratatouille did that really well, in my opinion.) I liked how that played out in Wreck-It Ralph, but I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen the movie yet.
Still sad that Charles Martinet didn’t get a cameo though.