A villain is the hero of this enjoyable Disney animation

Rating: 8/10 (20 October 2017)

This Disney animation isn't centred on a hero; its protagonist is the eponymous Wreck-It Ralph; the villain of the arcade game Fix-It Felix. While he lives alone in a dump while the other characters live in an apartment block. After thirty years he has had enough. He is told he can live in the apartment block if he wins a medal; the problem is villains don't get medals. When the arcade shuts down for the night the game characters leave their games and hang out together; he bumps into Space Marine from the 'bug hunt' game 'Hero's Duty' and decides to take this character's place and win a medal there. He gets his medal but is immediately attacked by a bug; he gets into an escape pod, with the bug, and ends up in another game; 'Sugar Rush'. Here he meets Vanellope Von Schweetz, a glitchy character who steals his medal so she can use it to enter a race to become one of the game's official racers. Now if he wants his medal back Vanellope will have to win the race so Ralph starts helping her. There are a few problems though; his own game doesn't work without him; the bug he brought to Sugar Rush threatens to breed and destroy the game and if a glitch wins the race it could leave to the game being shut down.
At first glance this could be mistaken for 'Toy Story with video game characters' thankfully it takes the concept in interesting new directions. I liked having a 'designated villain' as the films protagonist and the way the characters switch between games was rather fun. Ralph is a solid protagonist, even if he is meant to be a villain it is clear that he is a good person at heart. Vanellope is a cute and fun female lead so there is a character for young boys and young girls to cheer for. The secondary characters are fun too; hard-as-nails Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun from Hero's Duty and Fix-It Felix are fun, if unlikely, couple and King Candy makes a good antagonist; especially when we learn the truth about him. There are plenty of references to real video games, some I spotted but I'm sure there were many I didn't recognised as I was never a gamer. The action scenes are impressive with some really good animation; there are also plenty of laughs to be had some might be a little too scatological for some parents to approve of but I suspect those gags would have children laughing the most. The voice cast does a really good job bringing their characters to life in a way that doesn't sound overly cartoony as one would expect from Disney of course. Overall this is a fun animation that can be enjoyed by all children and probably most adults; especially those who grew up playing classic arcade games.