Movie of the Week: "Wreck It Ralph"

Who knew being bad could be so good?           

The Story:

Ralph (John C. Reilly) is the bad guy in a videogame.  He spends his days wrecking a building only to have the hero fix everything and win gold medals and the accolades of the city.  This goes on for 30 years, and Ralph is tired of his lonely life.  He wants to win a medal and be... liked.  So he leaves his game, gets his medal... and then things get...

Complicated.

Just as Toy Story showed years ago, that there is life for your toys when you are not around, Wreck-It Ralph shows what happens to the games in an arcade when the lights go out and the people go home.

These characters interact with one another and then when the lights go back on, they head back to their games, and life as they know it.

For most characters, this is great.  But for the villains...

Well, attending Bad-Anon meetings is a first step in realizing that they do indeed have a purpose in life.  Someone has got to be bad, so they might as well be the best bad-guy they can be.

Complications arise when Ralph gets out and heads to a first person shooter game to win his medal. He escapes with the gold, and an alien bug that will infect any game once it gets free.  When Ralph crashes in Sugar Rush, he meets a driver (Sarah Silverman) with a glitch, and a burning desire to be a racer even though the other racers scoff at her.

The two bond, unaware that the bug is multiplying, the very game is in danger, and that Calhoun (Jane Lynch) from the shooter game and Felix (Jack McBrayer) are hot on their trail to get Ralph out of there and save the day.

Bad guys don't win medals though, and they never, ever save the day.

Can Ralph overcome those two obstacles and prove otherwise, or is the whole game destined to crash?

This story was simply too much fun, and for anyone that's played video games ...ever... you'll see some version of a game that you've played once, twice or a thousand times over the years.

The voicework is great, and the stars do not outshine their characters.  Okay, maybe Jane Lynch, simply because she is almost becoming an over-the-top caricature of herself...

But otherwise, it all works.

And yes, I want to play Sugar Rush.  That game looks like Mario Kart... with even cooler weaponry!
: )


And talking to my little Academy Voters... they all agree on one thing:

Brave stole the Oscar this year.

Tsk tsk.


The one upside, the Oscar winning short Paperman is on this disc.


You know those internet memes "..still a better love story than Twilight" ?

Yeah, that's just the tip of the iceberg of cool things you could say about it, and hopefully it can be found on YouTube again now that the Oscars are over.


Final Grade: A

Would I Own It:  Put this on the list, I'm in!