Wreck-It Ralph

My first thought after seeing Wreck-It Ralph is: do video arcades still exist? I wasted many an hour at them thirty years ago, but I thought kids played video games now hunkered down in their rooms, isolated like lepers. The only public video games I see anymore are at movie theaters. I'm childless, so I don't know the customs of youth.

Anyway, Wreck-It Ralph is set at a video arcade, or more precisely, in the games themselves. The film uses the template of Toy Story, in that the characters in the games are sentient beings, even if they are made of code, and have private lives that exist after the arcade is closed. Wreck-It Ralph is clever and charming, even if it doesn't transcend the genre like the Toy Story films.

Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is a bad guy in a game called Fix-It Felix, Jr. He destroys a building, while Felix (Jack McBrayer) fixes it. Poor Ralph sleeps in a garbage dump and wants desperately to be good. He even attends "Bad-Anon" meetings, where video villains attempt to cope with their lot in life.

But Ralph isn't content. He goes into a military game to earn a medal, which sets off the plot of the movie. He ends up, where most of the movie takes place, in a racing game called Sugar Rush. But he's brought a monster with him from the military game, prompting a Lara Croft-like character (Jane Lynch) to pursue, along with Felix, who needs Ralph back or the game will be unplugged.

Ralph meets a glitch in Sugar Rush (Sarah Silverman) and the two bond, as Silverman wants to race in her game. We get all sorts of rules (glitches can't leave their game, if you die outside your game you don't regenerate) and a lot of colorful action.

The movie, ostensibly for young children, does provide nostalgia for older viewers, with appearances by actual video characters, such as Qbert and Pac-Man. I laughed at a few lines, but overall it's an average animated film with a warmed over message. I did like the voice work by Reilly, Silverman, and especially Allan Tudyk as King Candy of Sugar Rush, who channels Ed Wynn.

I've now seen all five of the Best Animated Film Oscar nominees, and I'd have to say the most fun I had was with the one that had no chance of winning: Pirates! Band of Misfits.