Wreck-It Ralph: Another Disney Masterpiece

The Mouse has done it again with another fantastic animated film.  There is alot to like about this fun, family friendly movie, and a big part of that is the stellar cast.  Featuring the voice talents of John C. Riley (in the title role of Wreck-It Ralph) Sarah Silverman (Vanellope Von Sweets), Jack McBrayer (Fix-it Felix Jr.), Jane Lynch (Sergeant Calhoun), and Mindy Kaling, the film has lots of humour that the kids will love, and plenty of references that will go right over their heads to land squarely in adults laps.
The plot is pretty adorable and heart warming. The whole thing takes place inside the various video game consoles down at Litwack's Arcade.  And all of its characters are the inhabitants of the various video games. 

In the opening scene, A Bad Anonymous meeting attended by a veritable who's who of video game villain's (including Bowser of Super Mario Brothers, Zangief and M. Bison of the Street Fighter franchise, Kano from Mortal Kombat, and chaired by Clyde, the orange ghost from Pac Man), we are introduced to Ralph.   He is a character from the game Fix-It Felix Jr.  Ralph is a wrecker.  It is his job to wreck an apartment building every game so that the game's hero, Felix, can fix it.  The thing is, while Ralph is the bad guy, he isn't actually a bad guy.  He is just doing his job.  But because he is different, the other inhabitants of his game treat him differently, except for Felix, who is always super nice to everyone.  Ralph is forced to live in the dump, amidst all the broken bricks he generates wrecking the building every game.  He never gets to eat pie, or gets invited to parties, and at the end of every game, while Felix is awarded a medal, Ralph is tossed off of the building to land in a mud pit.  Unhappy with this existence, Ralph embarks on a quest to earn a medal of his own in order to gain the acceptance of the other inhabitants of his game. In his search for a medal he travels to Hero's Duty, an ultra modern HD first person shooter, where he encounters Sergeant Calhoun, a tough as nails soldier who leads the assault on a horde of voracious cy-bugs.  Ralph manages to find a short cut to earn a medal and is soon after ejected from Hero's Duty, along with a rogue cy-bug.  He soon finds himself in Sugar Rush, a candy coated Kart racing game.  He quickly looses his medal to Vanellope Von Sweets, a saccharin sweet little pop tart who just wants to be a real racer, but because she is a "glitch" the other racers won't let her take part in the game.
Meanwhile Calhoun and Felix have set out to return Ralph to his game, and destroy the rogue cy-bug before it can multiply and destroy every game in the arcade.  Unexpected romance soon blooms between Felix and Calhoun.  Ralph soon realizes that Vanillope is a kindred spirit and offers to help her enter the big race, first building her a kart, and then teaching her how to drive.  Trust me when I say that heart warming hilarity ensues.  In the end, because it's a Disney film, everyone gets what they deserve, and they all live happily ever after.  Life lessons learned.

I actually enjoyed this film so much that I decided go back and see it a second time.  The second time, I took my two and a half year old daughter, the thief, because I thought she might enjoy it. This was her first ever movie on a big screen, my ultimate seal of approval.  As the Disney castle appeared in the opening credits, her eyes lit up and she immediately leaned over to give me a big hug and a kiss.  She sat through the whole thing, and was super excited by the candy land landscapes of Sugar Rush. Verdict: She loved it, and that's good enough for me.