The Best Animated Film of the year

Rating: 8/10 (7 November 2012)

Disney, taking a cue from Pixar, showed a short film before the screening of Wreck it Ralph. It was a cute mixture of different forms of animation, titled Paperman. A paper pusher runs into a woman on his way to work, everything in this world is black and white, like paper. Except for her lips, which are red. He is instantly infatuated with her and when a piece of paper blows onto her face, her red lipstick sticks makes a mark. He can't stop thinking about her and when he sees that she is in the building across the street, he decides to put all those papers to use. Cute, well thought out and conveys great emotion without a single word used.
I hope every animated feature starts putting out shorts because it's a nice addition. Now, onto Wreck it Ralph. I'm in mid mid twenties, so the idea of retro game characters coming to life when the lights go out, think of Toy Story, appealed to me greatly. The first half of this film, I enjoyed immensely, it took me back to my childhood. The second half, my girlfriend enjoyed immensely, because everything was bright and colourful candy.
Wreck-it Ralp is tired of being a villain. No one talks to the bad guys and everyone loves the good guys. Fix-it Felix earns medal after medal for beating the game and Ralph is tired of it. He wants his own medal, he wants to be part of the group. When he hears of another game, Hero's Duty, a first person shooter where you can get a medal, he game jumps. Something that is forbidden. When Ralph accidentally finds himself in an escape pod, with the medal and an alien creature from the game, it zooms out of the game and game jumps yet again, into Sugar Rush, a mario kart styled game where everything is edible. If he doesn't get back to his own game in time, it won't be playable and deemed broken. If a game is broken it gets unplugged, if it gets unplugged, the game characters have nowhere to go. Can Ralph get back to his own game in time to save himself and everyone else? Will the alien he was stuck with infect Sugar Rush? Can Ralph finally be a hero for once?
All these questions are answered in this fully realized game that had me smiling from start to finish. Sure it tends to be more conventional as it goes on, but that didn't bother me because I was immersed in this world. You know screen you play on in the arcade? Well, the characters see it too, in fact they see you, the gamer, playing them. When the lights go out, they all go to game central, you'll see the likes of Sonic, Q-bert, Pacman, and many many more. Half the fun is looking in the background for cameo characters.
Ralph is a character with one goal, become a hero. Clear cut, the characters he meets along the way help and hinder his goal. We follow him from point A to point B. As I mentioned before, the first half of the game will appeal to the older crowd, while the second half will appeal to the younger crowd. Characters make fun of the title Hero's Duty, so you know there is some potty humour involved.
There are a lot of in joke references for the gamers out there. I won't reveal them because that takes away the surprise of it all. Suffice to say, Wreck it Ralph works. They set up the rules of their world and follow through on them. Everything mentioned at one point in the film has a purpose and comes into play later on. Nothing in the film is a throw away. That's why I enjoyed it so much.
Kids will love it, specifically Sarah Silverman's character of Vanellope. Adults will like it because the story is well thought out and the comedy delivers. There's something for everyone in Wreck-it Ralph.