Movie Title: Wreck-it Ralph
Director: Rich Moore
Date Released: November 2nd, 2012
Date Seen: November 11th, 2012
Seen with: Michael (best friend) and his friend and his foster kids…. one of whom ate all my popcorn.
Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review
Super cute movie! Typical plot, no big plot twists or turns that an adult can’t see coming, it’s about being yourself and blah blah blah. But it was a cute movie. If you are a kid in an adults body or have kids – take them to see this movie. There’s a lot for the adults to enjoy, especially if you’re a big video game person, and the kids will find it funny. There’s a number of boogerhead, stinkybreath, stinkhead, poopface type name callings that have the kids laughing but it’s not annoying so that’s good. One warning before I forget – I wouldn’t take kids under about… 7 to see this movie. Overall, there is nothing scary, but there is a super creepy… thing towards the end. I won’t spoil it for you, but it was creepy and could easily give a kid nightmares. And no, it’s not even in the first person shooter game like you’d expect. That one was super PG rated. Just one scene though is all it takes for nightmares to be made!
Some of the most fun parts of the movies were discovering all the characters from other video games, from iconic video games like Pac-man and Mortal Kombat to just random ones that I’m sure other people got that I didn’t. Also there was an EXTREME attention to detail. It was super cool seeing not only on the actual arcade game screen that a certain game was 8-bit, but then when it went “into” the game, other than the main characters, the others in the game moved like they were still 8-bit. The buildings were 8 – bit, as in they looked like they were made out of legos. This was most clear on circular shaped things, like the top of windows, or a chandelier. It was really cool. Some games also we knew what they were trying to mimic and that was fun. Sugar Rush was Mario Kart. Exactly. Hero’s Duty reminded me of Halo with a plot out of Alien – but I’ve never played Halo so I don’t know what their plot is like. We don’t really go into any other games, but I’m actually ok with that. If they would have gone into really famous games, like Sonic the Hedgehog, for instance, then really die-hard fans would flip shit at any little detail that wasn’t completely perfect. So I’m actually kind of glad they didn’t.
I also really liked how the video game people were self aware – they know they’re in a game and when the arcade is closed they travel around, or live in their world. The Sugar Rush characters, for example, have a race each night to determine who gets to be the 9 racers available for play the next day. The pac-man bad guys run a bad guys anonymous support group. It’s really cool!
Also, there is a short before the movie. I found it ridiculous and stupid but everyone else apparently liked it. I’m not a lovey dovey person, so watching a little short about a guy chasing after a girl was just stupid in my opinion. He acted like a stalker would. So I didn’t like it. I’ll give the plot of it in the second part of the review, at the top, if you want to read it.
Part 2 – In-Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis
THE SHORT – PAPERMAN
The short is a silent, mostly black and white animated film. A guy is waiting for his train, when a paper blows by him and a beautiful girl grabs it. They eye-flirt, then one of his papers blows into her face. He pulls it off apologetically, and notices her laughing. He looks at the paper and sees that her lips left a little kiss-mark on the paper. When he looks back up, she is gone on her train. So first off, she left dude, any girl who thought you were cute would have stayed. So that was my first reason I didn’t like this. Anyway, then he goes to work, and is all sad, and clearly hates his boring monotonous desk job. Why he doesn’t go get another one, like a sane person would, isn’t explained. A piece of paper blows out the window – and he notices that across the street is the girl from the train! He tries to get her attention, but cannot and gets scolded by his boss. He then waits for the boss to leave and starts making paper airplanes and throwing them at her. They all miss. Another reason I hate this is 1. all his paper airplanes fall below, what a litter-er. and 2. I hope those weren’t anything sensitive or else you’re gonna be in a shit ton of trouble. He runs out of paper, and only the one with the kiss is left. He throws it, and again misses. The woman leaves, and paperman is all sad – and his boss gives him more papers to do now that the idiot wasted all his others. Rather than be a productive member of society, paperman runs downstairs to try and find the woman. This is how stalking begins, children. He doesn’t find her, aw sad, but then, magically, all his fallen paper airplanes come together and start pushing him somewhere. The one lone paper airplane with the kiss finds the woman and leads her somewhere too – where do they both get led? To the train station of course and it ends with them looking at each other lovingly. It was idiotic.
THE MOVIE
Conveniently, imdb.com has a great synopsis, here.
My comments – the scary monster, in case you were wondering, looks like a big giant bug robot creature, with a “candy king” face that keeps flashing back to being an old video game character that is pale and looks kind of zombie ish (without blood)… it’s just pretty creepy, so it’s good to be aware of it.
I did find it slightly annoying that all the game people hated Ralph – you know that that is his job… why hasn’t in 30 years anyone tried to get to know him? I find that crazy. But then there wouldn’t be a movie so whatever I’ll let it slide.
I thought Vanellope was going to annoy the crap out of me, because I hate Sarah Silverman, but she didn’t, so that was really cool. I loved her character and I LOVED the sugar rush world. I found myself thinking, at one point, as all the crowds people (various candy items), were thrown candy by the Candy King and ate some… wouldn’t that be cannibalism? Ha. I did really really really want candy during all these scenes.
I loved that the “bad” scary mountain in Sugar Rush was diet coke mountain – with sugar free lollipops surrounding it. That was hilarious. And then mentos and coke thing… genius. I was cracking up and the little kids we were with had no idea why (they were 5 and 7).
Other than video game easter eggs, there were a couple of movie references that were hilarious… I forgot the one that was towards the beginning that had me cracking up… but at some other part, Ralph is under some chocolate, using a candy straw to breathe through, and he sounds just like Darth Vader. That was awesome.
Overall: 7.5/10
It was cute, predictable, good visuals, and a good watch for the family.
Maria's Movie Reviews 