Disney is back with new animation Wreck It Ralph.
The film takes place in an arcade and tells the story of the characters that live in the games the kids love to play. The story focuses on Ralph, the bad guy in a game called Fix It Felix. Ralph’s job is to wreck a building of flats, before Felix comes to fix everything and is celebrated by the people who live in the building. He sleeps by himself in a dump and is ostracized by the other characters in the game who believe that he is only there to wreck things. One day, he decides he’s sick of being alone and goes on a quest to find a gold medal, to try and prove to the Fix It Felix-ers that he can be a hero, not just a bad guy.
Ralph’s adventure first sees him in a Halo-like game, Hero’s Duty, and eventually he finds himself in the kart-racing game Sugar Rush, where he meets Vanellope von Schweetz – a nine-year-old wannabe racer banished for being a ‘glitch’ – and decides to help her win her way back into the race.
As well as having the usual Disney sweetness and heart-warming moral messages, Wreck It Ralph is so clever. The characters can pass through to different games by trains that go through Game Central Station (which we viewers see from the outside is actually a plug circuit) and the bad guys vent their frustrations at not being heroes in a support group called Bad-Anon. It’s details like this that make Disney a cut above the rest.
Although the film is aimed at children, its still hugely enjoyable for adults as well. References to retro games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Pacman will remind older ones of their childhoods and there’s some clever adult humour buried among all the child-friendly jokes as well.
The voice cast is star-studded to say the least: John C. Reilly takes the lead as Ralph, Sarah Silverman voices Vanellope, Jack McBrayer is fantastic as Fix It Felix and Glee’s Jane Lynch provides the hilarious snarkiness of Hero’s Duty officer Sergeant Calhoun.
Wreck It Ralph is one of the best films Disney has released for a long time. The animation is unbelievable, the story is sweet and it is genuinely really funny. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for my very own Wreck It Ralph video game…
[rating=5]
