How's the Night Life on Cissalda?

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2013)

"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way." - Jessica Rabbit
"Wreck-It Ralph" is a dull and unimaginative animated comedy by Walt Disney Studios. The film finds John C. Reilly voicing Ralph, a muscular character trapped in a computer game's villain's role. Desiring to be a hero, Ralph embarks on a quest to find a silver medallion, a quest which sees him both battling an evil video game overlord and helping a young computer programme who exists as an unwanted glitch.
"Wreck-It Ralph" hit theatres the same week that Disney sealed the deal to acquire LucasFilm and its Star Wars franchise (it absorbed Pixar and chunks of Marvel as well), moves which are indicative of the company's love affair with recognisable brands. "Wreck It Ralph" is itself a giant game of spot-the-brand. Like "Toy Story", which bought the licenses of numerous classic toys for the purpose of populating its virtual world (and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" before it), "Ralph" is packed with both authorised video game crossovers and nods to modern and old-school computer games. There are allusions to 8-bit games of the 1980s, the sprites of the 1990s and the more "advanced" first person shooters of today. Pac Man makes an appearance, the cast of Street Fighter, Ralph is modelled on Donkey Kong, one game world resembles the conflicts between StarCraft's Space Marines and Zerg, and an extended set piece plays like Mario Kart on glucose.
Unfortunately the film is witless, totally unfunny, none of its homages are particularly clever, its visuals look drab next to other recent Disney animated features ("Tangled", "Bolt"), its big car chase sequence feels like a low rent version of "Cars", or even "Phantom Menace's" pod-race on a budget, and the film's virtual computer worlds are all unimaginative. One virtual world, called Sugar Rush and populated by Bratz doll lookalikes, resembles a cross between Diet Coke and My Little Pony equestrian vomit, only more epileptic. Bizarrely, the film urges ostracised folk to suck it up and win the favour of bullies in order to earn inclusion. Nice.
4/10 – Better recent big studio animations? "Tangled", "Megamind" and "The Secret World of Arrietty". More interesting international fare? "Persepolis", the works of Sylvain Chomet, Yuriy Norshteyn, Mamouru Oshii, Satoshi Kon, Isao Takahata and of course Miyazaki.