Fun! Friends! And Fix it Felix Jr. featuring Wreck-it Ralph

Rating: 7/10 (17 November 2012)

In my recent IMDb commentary for HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA I mentioned Disney's new film WRECK-IT RALPH. This is what I wrote about it: "one of the trailers I got to watch was the one of the upcoming Disney film WRECK-IT RALPH; it seems that "Ralph" will not miss the chance to deliver really clever material out of a mash-up of classic characters (video games characters, like Nintendo's Bowser, in that case)".
Now that I have finally seen it I can say that this is a film with a very nicely constructed alternate universe where video game characters are much more than a bunch of pixels. I mean, "Ralph" does features a whole lot of classic video game characters – in fact, it's one of those things, like the IMAGINATIONLAND trilogy of SOUTH PARK, that you have to watch frame by frame to identify all the famous characters in it. There's Pac-Man, Sonic and the STREET FIGHTER characters.
Anyone who grew up in the eighties will be especially thrilled to see those characters, although they are only extras or, in some cases, just part of the background. This goes for that creation of an alternate universe; and it's a real success, with really clever and fun ideas. It's a TOY STORY sort of thing, just replace toys with video game characters and try to answer that same question of "what would they do if they were anthropomorphic characters?" If the toys have to work for the kids, the video game heroes and villains too – here's there's a whole working system, like in MONSTERS, INC.
Yes, in "Ralph" we have clever ideas through and through, as if it was another gem from Pixar. For instance, we learn everything that happens when a game either breaks or goes out of fashion (it's pretty rough for the characters as you can tell); we have too stuff like a great reference to the differences between the games from the golden age of the arcade and the modern HD ones such as CALL OF DUTY and GEARS OF WAR. The premise itself is really nice: the villain of a game (Ralph – voice of John C. Reilly) is simply tired of his daily job and wants to become the hero!
As a movie about video games, "Ralph" is definitely a blast. But as a whole, well, it's not something annoying and noisy like "Transylvania" but nevertheless it's an average, just-to- see-once, flick. It ain't a gem like, you know, almost every one from the catalog of Pixar.
*Watched it on 11 November, 2012