Runtime: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Rating: PG
Directors: Rich Moore
Quick Impressions:
Usually movies based on video games…
Well, I hate to be harsh. But…
Remember that misguided Super Mario Brothers adaptation starring Bob Hoskins as Mario? If you answered that question “yes,” without following the word “yes” with the word “unfortunately” (or at least a tortured grimace), then we’ll have to agree to disagree for the next few paragraphs.
I think I’m representing the views of the majority when I say that despite Hoskins’s considerable talent as an actor, Super Mario Brothers was a horrible film adaptation of a video game.
I could even call it the worst film adaptation of a video game, but sadly, to do so would be less than honest. Let’s face it, you and I could probably easily name ten worse screen treatments of video games and come up with two distinct lists. The sad truth is that while in any normal context, Angelina Jolie’s two Tomb Raider films would be called horrendous, as video games to movies go, they’re merely not great.
My point is, despite some dubious outliers—the Resident Evil series, Final Fantasy, maybe Prince of Persia (particularly if you’re under 12), hopefully the upcoming Mass Effect movie—film adaptations of famous video games are usually beyond wretched. The only movies that center on video games that are actually good are the ones that invent a fictional video game for the purpose of advancing a separate but well developed story. (I think in that last sentence I may be referring to a category of films that includes only The Last Starfighter. And maybe there’s room in there for Tron. Maybe.)
I am honestly not sure why turning a beloved video game into a solid action movie is so hard. (Maybe it’s all the repetitive action sequences of a game. Maybe it’s the unrealistic, shallow, overdramatic heroes. Maybe it’s the strange, almost naïve earnestness of many games suitable for family play.) But I do see why it would be impossible to create a movie with any emotional depth within the confines of a classic arcade game like Q-bert or Donkey Kong.
The Super Mario Brothers movie made a bad choice. Making Mario a plumber in real-world Brooklyn barely makes sense. But consider the alternative—creating a story that begins in a pixelated dreamland where Mario and Luigi for no apparent reason bump into question boxes with their heads and stomp on side-scrolling baddies with their feet while attempting to rescue a princess from a vaguely motivated giant turtle monster with a lot of kids whose family weakness is having heads that will hold up to only two stompings and no more? Granted, that would probably be a better movie than Battleship, but it still seems like pretty surreal (and emotionally shallow) stuff for a full-length cinematic feature.
The Good:
Wreck-It Ralph neatly sidesteps this pitfall by creating a world that’s bigger than (and different from) a single video game but still far removed from the reality we experience. The plot of the movie is something entirely different than the story of Ralph’s game Fix-It Felix, Jr. Instead the film follows the lead of an earlier Disney project, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (also starring Bob Hoskins) that imagined cartoon characters as animated actors living in Toon Town, a particularly vibrant neighborhood in Hollywood.
As Wreck-It Ralph (and its widely played trailers) stress, just because Ralph is a “bad guy” in his game, that doesn’t make him a bad guy in reality. His video game is too simplistic to be a good cinematic story, his character in the game, too shallow. (All Wreck-It Ralph does is knock down a high rise apartment building with his hands. Fix-It Felix, Jr. is a lot like Donkey Kong or Rampage.) But that’s just Ralph’s nine to five job, performed only during the business hours of the arcade. Once all the kids go home, the real Ralph emerges, a character of surprising depth and growing self-awareness.
Wreck-It Ralph makes the arcade a community (like Toon Town in Who Framed Roger Rabbit), a place where the video game characters can exchange pleasantries (and ideas) over a virtual root beer after hours. This inspired setting allows the filmmakers the luxury of working with multiple genres as Ralph jumps from game to game to game. The ever-changing setting allows for stunning (and varied) visuals, more inventive jokes, clever social commentary, and much more engaging character development than a single world would.
Ralph begins his journey thinking only in terms of the way things work inside his game where happiness is having a medal and a cake on the top of the tower. But when he begins exploring the very different worlds of other games, suddenly he realizes that there are different things to want, different ways to frame his dilemma, and unexpected solutions that he never could have imagined if he’d stayed stuck in the limited world of his own thirty-year-old game.
Ralph’s journey to find himself is a typical cinematic quest. The idea of leaving home for more exotic locations is old, too, as is the idea of characters just having day jobs. (See Who Framed Roger Rabbit, old Looney Tunes cartoons, or any film about actors). But nobody has applied this kind of set-up to the world of video gaming before, and the results are wonderfully delightful.
Wreck-It Ralph is able to honor video game staples like Pac-Man, Q-bert, and the cast of Street Fighter II in a way that preserves their integrity without sacrificing the emotional depth of the story. Real video game characters get cameos. The stars of the show are all characters who come from games created specifically to enrich this story. (And, no doubt, to sell future Wreck-It Ralph based spin-off games, an eye-popping goldmine without apparent end.)
So Wreck-It-Ralph succeeds as a movie because it creates the characters it needs to tell a good story that will work well in a feature length film format. As an added bonus, you get the visual (and often cerebral) fun of watching three worlds separated by genre, style, and time converge and merge into one just as the pace and complexity of the story increase accordingly. You get a movie that packs an emotional punch, tells a good story, pays homage to several classic games, makes clever game-related jokes, and looks ever so pretty as it explodes onto the big screen in vibrant color (and if you pay extra) 3D. It also features many great songs, some of them original.
In some ways, Wreck-It Ralph is incredibly similar to ParaNorman. It touches on some of the same themes and seems to want to impart similar lessons. But it delivers its message in a much shinier, more kid-friendly way. My three-year-old actually stayed awake and focused on the screen throughout the entire movie for the first time in several months. (Side rant: What is wrong with our ratings system? Why is this movie rated PG? Does anything get a G anymore?)
Oscar Chances:
I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie takes home an animated Oscar just for being less eerie and creepy than most of the animated fare out this year. Personally, I’d nominate ParaNorman, Brave, Frankenweenie, and Wreck-It Ralph. (I’m leaving a spot open for Rise of the Guardians, though the Academy is sure to throw one of these five out and substitute an obscure foreign film that hasn’t screened in most of the U.S. yet.) But Brave and Frankenweenie are really being nominated on the strength of their animation. The other two are more complete, both strong on style and substance, different mainly in tone.
ParaNorman is like Wreck-It Ralph’s creepy, evil twin—both tell the same stories about growing up, but one makes you smile and tear up while the other makes you shudder and throw up in your mouth a little bit. (I like ParaNorman better, but my kids prefer Wreck-It Ralph.)
Funniest Scene/s:
If you are or have ever been a gamer, obviously you’re going to find this movie funnier than those who don’t play video games (like my dad who spent a long stretch asleep). Another factor in determining the movie’s funniest scenes is your age. Little kids absolutely cracked up at Vanellope von Schweetz’s innocently crude insults, but you’re more likely to be an adult if you get the sight gag about King Candy’s cops (who have pretty amusing names, as well). Either way, there’s plenty of good natured comedy to make everyone smile throughout and laugh occasionally although the film is actually more of a drama.
For me, picking the funniest scene is pretty easy. The winning chant of King Candy’s guards notwithstanding, what amused me most about the movie were the ongoing flashbacks to Calhoun’s tragic backstory.
Best Action Sequence:
The final sequence of the movie begins as a big race, transitions to a fight scene, and ends in a grand, dramatic gesture of attempted self-sacrifice. Of course, this is the most riveting part of the movie. Stuff happens nonstop, and all of it is exciting and impossible not to watch.
Best Scene:
I have trouble choosing between the high comedy/peril of the Nesquicksand and the high octane bonding of Vanellope and Ralph as she prepares for the big race. None of the scenes are bad, and the movie never drags. My three-year-old was riveted throughout, though she said what she liked best was “the fighting part.” (She refused many times to clarify that statement.) My nine-year-old said that his favorite part “would probably have to be the whole thing.”
My husband and I both teared up at the ending (though, possibly for different reasons) since he liked the Mentos aspect, and what resonated with me was the sentiment Ralph expresses at the very, very end.
Visually:
My mother said repeatedly that watching the scenes set within the game Sugar Rush (where most of the movie’s action takes place) gave her a tooth ache and made her sick to her stomach.
Personally, I loved these scenes. Since my childhood I’ve adored looking at drawings of candy. In fact, I get more of a sugar rush from virtual candy than actual candy. So I found the décor of Sugar Rush particularly appealing, especially during the big race. It’s like a big screen, HD Mario Kart game through Candy Land. How could that not be good?
What the movie does best, though, is make each particular set of characters move in a way that reflects the age and aesthetics of their game. The folks over at Fix-It Felix, Jr. are all robotic and square just like the digitized heroes in late Atari and early Nintendo games. Meanwhile, Calhoun has the kind of fluid movement and sexier-than-life looks you’d expect from the hero of a first person space shooter like Hero’s Duty.
Best Performances:
Both of my children liked Sarah Silverman’s impish, glitchy pixie Vanellope von Schweetz the best, and based on the audience reactions that I heard in the theater, I’d say that most other kids agreed with their assessment. Adults may find her “diaper baby” brand of humor a bit harder to relate to. (Then again, adults who live with young children may not.) But judging by all the bursts of high-pitched, squealing giggles, all the little kids in the audience fell completely in love with the character.
As performances go, I thought John C. Reilly gave Wreck-It Ralph himself a relatable, everyman quality that came through in his soulful, understated line delivery. His was by far my favorite performance of the movie. I mean, how many people honestly relate to a character that’s basically a human version of Donkey Kong or a Rampage monster? When John C. Reilly voices the character, the answer is almost everyone. He does a wonderful job.
Just as fantastic in her own way is Jane Lynch, the most recognizable voice actor in the film since her character looks just like her (in the face, I mean. Though statuesque and imposing, Lynch does not normally swagger around in space armor looking like the bustier,
not-so-distant cousin of Samus Aran from Metroid.)
Jack McBrayer has a lot less to do as Felix, one of the most underdeveloped characters in the movie. (He does get a character arc of his own, but I still think his influence on those around him is more interesting than his own interior journey.) Meanwhile, Alan Tudyk seems to channel Ed Wynn’s Mad Hatter as King Candy, while Mindy Kaling makes rival racer Taffyta a lot of fun.
The Negatives:
One really weird thing about this movie is that some of the characters are much more realized, rounded individuals than others. I suppose that’s not so weird. In most movies (and sometimes, it seems, real life), some characters are dynamic while others remain static. But as I think about it now, it is a bit weird that Ralph is not at all the character he plays in his game, while Calhoun is entirely the character she plays in her game. What I mean is, Ralph’s anxieties aren’t based on the way he was programmed or his character’s origins (of basically being an angry guy who came from a transplanted tree stump). But Calhoun’s “tragic backstory” (something given to her character by the creators of Hero’s Duty) does seem to shape her personality, her anxieties, her choices and concerns. Of course, maybe that’s just because every video game is different. Ralph’s game is thirty years old, and games were less cinematic in nature back then. Now some games in HD look just as good as movies and boast voice casts comprised of big name stars.
If this kind of thing ruins the movie for you, then my guess is, you’re probably a very unhappy person.
Overall:
For the first time in several months, my three-year-old stayed awake and alert throughout the entire movie, and at the end paid it a compliment. Now she tells me, “I thought it was pretty good.” The rest of us (a group ranging in age from nine to sixty) thought so, too. Wreck-It Ralph is fun for the whole family. It’s pretty to look at with a solid story, clever jokes, and something substantial to say to viewers of every age, and it’s probably the best video game movie that you will ever see (definitely better than the Super Mario Brothers movie with Bob Hoskins). Run to your local theater and yell, “I’m gonna wreck it!” ASAP.