Time for a reality check

Rating: 7/10 (7 November 2012)

Wreck-It Ralph is a very good movie, which I really enjoyed. I would put it right up there with Tangled and Cars and A Bugs Life.
But it is no Toy Story or Who Framed Roger Rabbit, movies to which it is being mistakenly compared. Those movies were masterpieces. This is far from a masterpiece. It has the good fortune of being released in a year of good but flawed animated movies--The Lorax, Brave, Ice Age 4, Madagascar 3, ParaNorman, Frankenweenie, Hotel Transylvania...this is not a stellar movie slate. Release this movie in 2010 (the year of Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me and Tangled) and it would barely get noticed.
Ralph's quest to get a medal seems arbitrary and artificial, especially when compared to Woody's quest to get back home. The amount of arbitrary rules in this movie is staggering and evidence of lazy writing. And the movie overall felt derivative--from its plot of a bad guy who turns good (Despicable Me, Megamind) to its characters like King Candy (the Mad Hatter from Alice) and Vanellope (Agnes from Despicable Me), to its twist at the end (Who Framed Roger Rabbit). Don't get me wrong--I really liked this movie, and I think it was the best animated movie of the year. But this year that's not saying much.