#68: Wreck It Ralph

Dang, who ever thought we'd get a sequel to this? Not me - but I'm glad for it.

Also I love the teaser poster to both this and the second movie. The rest fall into that typical CGI cartoon nonsense but the pixellation of this + the cursor and searchbox of the sequel poster are awesome to me.

Let's get this out of the way; This could have gone badly. Every time Disney hint at putting some kind of semi-modern spin on its movies, people get into a panic that it'll be "too much" or "it won't age well."

This movie doesn't have that problem. Now, the sequel, dealing with the internet, very well might. But this isn't about that.

This is about a man who does a job and everyone hates him for it it both in and out of game. Kind of like job recruiting.

The overwhelming message here is...what is the aesop here?




I love this movie a lot, but I've never been 100% sure on what the aesop is supposed to be. "You can gain the world but lose your soul"?

You can say "You don't need the entire world to like you", and that's hinted at by the final line in the movie, but in the end, that's what happens. The citizens of Niceland appreciate Ralph and the fact that he's there so they don't get unplugged and be homeless.

So, yeah, I...don't really know what this film is trying to convey. I'm going with "The Status Quo is Garbage and People in Positions of Authority Can't Be Trusted."

But it's a super fun ride.

Anyone who knows me knows that this is not my favorite movie in the Disney Animated Canon, but it has the important distinction of having my favorite character;

source

I love one (1) Candy Princess.

That's not a spoiler, shut up.

Vanellope has a sense of modernity that doesn't date anything she says. Also she's adorable.

Visually, it's a bit .... weird. Is it a stylistic choice to have many of the Sugar Rush races oddly smooth? Or is just the fact that it's aged a bit. Considering Tangled still looks very good...maybe it's stylistic.

The visuals are YMMV, the moral is muddled, but it's the snappy wordplay with one-liners like "Children of the Candy Corn" and "Pixlexia". The real friendship between Ralph and Vanellope also sells it.

I don't consider any of those odd aspects dealbreakers to this film because the rest is just so fun.