ANI-MOVIES, *Wreck-It Ralph

Coming out a year before Frozen would chill the entire world with its music, Disney's prior CGI-animated movie that for once didn't rely on fairy tales as its source material. Wreck-It Ralph from 2012 was another non-Pixar production that was a throwback to retro arcades of the 80s and 90s and guest stars real game characters as a part of it like from Pac-Man and Street Fighter II. Former Futurama animator Rich Moore directed this, with an eclectic script by Frozen's Jennifer Lee and Phili Johnston who went on to write Zootopia. The story borrows from the idea of Toy Story where the video game characters come to life when no one else is around to play them and all live in their own little electronic community where they can hang out together. The original characters are interesting and have some definitive appeal. Wreck-It Ralph has been labeled as the Roger Rabbit of video game movies as the actual crossover of game characters is very limited. The film was supposed to be released in spring of the following year but was ahead of schedule and did gangbusters during the holiday season, plus winning the Oscar for Best Animation.

Set in a modern day arcade, the Donkey Kong-inspired game Fix-It Felix Jr. is celebrating its 30th anniversary of being in the arcade, and all the characters from it are having a party even though they don't invite Wreck-It Ralph who is the single bad guy that wrecks an apartment building while Felix steps in to fix all the damage with a magical hammer. Ralph attends a focus group for game villains that realize that their part is play the antagonist, but him not being involved to the anniversary party makes him finally speak out how he hates sleeping in a pile of bricks while all the other characters get to live in nice apartments. The residents tell Ralph they'll only count him as one of them unless he gets a medal, so Ralph hops into another video game inspired by Aliens where he has to travel up tower as a space marine and kill monsters called Cy-Bugs. He succeeds but ejects into another game called Sugar Rush which is like Candy Land mixed with Mario Kart where kids race cars in a land made of candy, along with a Cy-Bug that starts laying eggs. Ralph meets the game's outcast Vanellope who takes Ralph's medal and uses it as a token to enter a race that will finally earn her a place on Sugar Rush's character select menu. The land is ruled by King Candy who seems like a rip-off of Ed Wynn when he voiced the Mad Hatter and finds Ralph's presence as a foil to his plans to keep Vanellope permanently out of the game, even though Ralph teams up with the glitchy girl to help her win the race to get his medal back. They make their own candy creation car for the race that begins just as the Cy-Bugs start invading. Meanwhile, Felix tags along with bug hunter Sgt. Calhoun and forms a bizarre romance with her. King Candy gets infected by the Cy-Bugs and turns into a hybrid monster while revealing that he was from another game and took over Sugar Rush making everyone forget that Vanellope is really the reigning princess of their game. Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun manage to vanquish the Cy-Bugs with Vanellope winning her place in the game. Ralph gets to live in his game's apartments, Vanellope is a playable character, plus Felix and Calhoun get hitched.

Wreck-It Ralph was a major booster for Walt Disney Animation Studio which hadn't had a big win since Tangled two years later. There wasn't as much merchandise backing this film as you would normally expect from Disney which might be partially to the incorporating licensed video game characters into it. The comedy is on par for all-ages audiences of the time, as well as old school gamers, even though it doesn't have any particularly huge rewatch value as most Disney fans would probably enjoy viewing the original Tron again over this.