Blu-ray Review: Wreck-It Ralph
It was one of the top-grossing toons of 2012 (and should have been the Oscar winner for Animated Feature) and now Disney's Wreck-It Ralph has entered the home entertainment world of Blu-ray and DVD. Grossing over $435M worldwide, the video game-inspired pic is one of the most clever and delightful animated films that has come out of Hollywood in recent years and tells of a world of characters from different games who have an entire life unknown to humankind. Much like Toy Story, the fun comes to life when people's backs are turned.
John C. Reilly is terrific voicing the title character, the villain of the game Fix-It Felix Jr. - a Donkey Kong-esque clone complete with 1980s 8-bit graphics. Not wanting to be bad anymore, he sets out to become good and earn respect as he enters the worlds of other video games in the arcade. Animation styles are lush in Ralph which presents multiple game worlds each with a distinct style from the low-tech Felix to the colorfully sweet Sugar Rush to the hyper-violent first-person shooter game Hero's Duty.
The story keeps it moving along always turning an interesting corner to the next act. The introduction of Duty - a sharp contrast to Ralph's own game - may be too intense and scary for younger children at first, but with multiple viewings it plays fine with most ages. The supporting cast is outstanding including Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch.
As is often the case with animated films, the deleted scenes are not too enjoyable as they are mostly storyboards of scenes that were not worth animating. But the Bit by Bit documentary is engaging and informative giving a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of the popular film from crew members who grew up playing many of these types of games. Some fake TV commercials for the arcade games depicted in the movie add some nostalgic fun and the inclusion of the Oscar-winning short Paperman is a nice bonus feature.
Whether you played any video games over the last three decades or not, Wreck-It Ralph is an enjoyable film for all audiences and stands apart from every other animated film we've seen to date. There's a reason why it spent 15 weeks in the Top 20.
Blu-ray Title: Wreck-It Ralph
Review by Gitesh Pandya
Run Time: 101 minutes
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
NOW AVAILABLE
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