And go awry it certainly does, when Ralph decides that he’s sick of living in a garbage dump while Fix-It Felix, Jr. (Jack McBrayer) and the other good guys in his natal game celebrate its 30th anniversary without inviting him to the party. Told that only winning a gold medal like Felix regularly does will gain him social acceptance, Ralph exits the game through the power cord in search of opportunities to prove himself as a hero. It takes him to a common area called Game Central Station — ostensibly located in the power strip where all the games are plugged in — which is where all the characters from the various games go to mingle and unwind after closing time at the arcade. From the station (whose population of homeless panhandlers includes familiar figures from discontinued early games like Q*bert, Frogger and Dig Dug), a character can gain access to any other game during non-working hours.
Here’s where things start to get interesting. The multiple arcade game worlds in Wreck-It Ralph provide ample opportunities for the animators to depict wildly different visual aesthetics onscreen in a single vehicle. Whereas characters in Fix-It Felix, Jr.’s eight-bit environment can only move jerkily while at home, and spilled liquids are compelled by the limitations of low-rez to spread in a pixillated pattern with lots of right angles, Ralph takes on more rounded, three-dimensional contours and moves more realistically when he enters more modern types of games on his quest.
When neither a 12-step program for game villains nor a consultation with the bartender in Tapper soothes Ralph’s existential crisis, he enters a first-person shooter game called Hero’s Duty in search of his medal. Here the movie’s look becomes dark, high-tech and probably more than a bit scary for very young audiences. Although Ralph immediately discovers that he’s in over his head, he manages to escape the game with both his medal and a nasty cyber-insect in tow.
His escape pod lands him in yet another game environment with an entirely different look: a go-kart racing game set in a sort of Candyland whose eye-popping neon-pastel colors may give parents headaches while they delight the kiddies (the same may be said of the movie’s bubblegum soundtrack as well). Here Ralph forms a reluctant alliance with Vanellope, a not-so-sweet little girl (Sarah Silverman) who has been barred by the king of Sugar Rush from racing because she has a tendency to glitch. He is pursued by Felix, whose game is in imminent danger of permanent obsolescence since its villain has gone missing, and by a commando babe from Hero’s Duty (Jane Lynch) who needs to destroy the AWOL Cy-Bug before its thousands of eggs hatch in the innocent Sugar Rush world.
The game-jumping action in Wreck-It Ralph enables lots of visual humor, such as the compulsively destructive Cy-Bug taking on the cute candy colors of its new habitat. A seismically active mountain where stalactites of Mentos dangle perilously over an underground lake of diet cola proves a crucial locale. As is their wont, the Disney folks also toss in a few jokes that will likely go over the little ones’ heads, such as giving the scheming King Candy (Alan Tudyk) the goofy voice, look and mannerisms of the long-dead comedian Ed Wynn.
Older kids and gamer geeks will have fun playing spot-the-meme, with lots of characters from existing or former real-world games making cameo appearances. Best of all, perhaps — certainly for parents of little girls — is a welcome continuation of the trend begun earlier this year in Brave for young cartoon heroines to reject opportunities to become corseted, cosseted Disney princesses in favor of a more adventurous lifestyle.
While not a catalyst for deep soul-searching, beyond a chat with the kids about how even big guys like Ralph can be victims of bullying, Wreck-It Ralph is an enjoyable confection that dazzles the eye with a wild panorama of what animators can bring to life these days, especially in 3-D. You may feel like brushing your teeth afterwards, but it’s a fun ride.
