Film Diary 2013: Wreck-It-Ralph

When the arcade is closed for the evening characters from games are able, if they so choose, to amble out into game central station and hang out, but they have to be back in their game for morning to keep the gamers happy, lest something goes wrong and the machine gets unplugged.  This is all well and good if you're the hero of your game, less so if you're the villain.  Our hero, and his game's villain, is Ralph (John C. Reilly) a nine foot tall brute and antagonist of the game Fix-It-Felix (Jack McBrayer).

Ralph wants a little bit of respect and thinks the best way to achieve this would be to win a medal, much like Felix does at the end of a successful level.  However Ralph won't get the chance in his own game, so ventures into another to try and turn things around.  Ultimately winding up in a first-person-shooter called Hero's Duty and then a garish go-kart racer called Sugar Rush, in which he befriends glitch Vanellope (Sarah Silverman).

There is a sort of clunkiness to the concept of Wreck-It-Ralph, whereas the aforementioned Roger Rabbit and Toy Story had it pretty easy, there are more rules, regulations, provisos and quirks that need to be laid out and constantly updated as the film chugs along.  This isn't so bad, but does result in a few moments of lumbering exposition that, one imagines, could have been handled more elegantly and with a touch more fizz.

Similarly the film's plot lacks any real sense of propulsion, content to meander reasonably aimlessly and not really exploring its intriguing world as much as one would like.  There was a clever way of interweaving the familiar animated stars into the fabric of Roger Rabbit, and Toy Story utilised its well known playthings with subtle grace, but Ralph is more content to chuck things in for a laugh, and its palette runs dry rather quickly.

Sure, it's nice to see the likes of Street Fighter II's Zangief, King Koopa and Dr. Robotnik all rub shoulders in the film's early bad guy help group scene, but it feels like a forced intermingling as opposed to something a little more organic.  This wouldn't matter so much if the main narrative were top notch, but there are problems aplenty there.

The main relationship of the film is between Ralph and Vanellope, and there are moments where it works like a charm - the go-kart building scene is lovely - and when it reaches its dramatic apex it does have some emotional clout, but it's resolution feels convoluted and unearned, and there's a certain joylessness to how things are resolved.  Which is a surprise and a shame as director Rich Moore certainly has pedigree when it comes to this kind of thing, working on the Futurama episode 'Anthology of Interest II', featuring a segment in which video game characters invaded Earth.

However the giddy excitment of mashing up Mario and q-bert, Pac-Man and Space Invaders seems a little bit corporate in this film.  So it's up to the film's three primary 'fake' games to shoulder the burden, Fix-It-Felix wins on charm, and it's nice to see the 8-bit styled versions of this, and a few other games within the film.  Shoot-em-up Hero's Duty is pretty bland, buoyed by Jane Lynch's non-sequitur spouting Calhoun.  Whilst candy-centric racer Sugar Rush makes for some deliciously tactile environments it's rather flavourless and artifical in other respects.

Overall, the film coasts along on a handful of neat video game sight gags, a few moments of heavy-handed emotional manipulation and a generally great aesthetic.  However, there's very little beyond the surface to really endure, which is what leaves this floundering whereas the likes of Roger, Buzz and Woody soar.  If you're looking for a film that successfully marries videogames and cinema head to Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Wreck-It-Ralph is something of a missed opportunity.

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