A cute and creative piece that might seem trivial but secretly teaches kids some really important stuff
The Arcade.
The building stone of many childhoods.
The devourer of quarters.
The giver of tickets.
… I think. I’ve never been to an arcade. Do they give out tickets?
Doesn’t matter. What matters is that arcades are tiny little universes of fun that have an amazing storytelling potential. It was just a matter of time before some animation studio took it upon themselves to delve deep into the world of an arcade and pull out a whole new adventure. Disney ended up being that studio and in 2012, Rich Moore made Wreck-It Ralph.
I live for animated movies. I can still look past the overuse of plasticky 3D animation that has plagued us for years. As long as it’s at least somewhat appealing, I’ll watch it. Some are kinda weird and forgettable (looking at you, Boss Baby), some I’ve seen a million times and counting (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, I love you). So naturally I was all over Wreck-It Ralph when it came out, ready to be introduced to a wonderful world of arcade games, something that I’ve always considered painfully missing from my own childhood.
And now I get to dissect it for homework. Life is great.
We meet Ralph at “Bad Guys Anonymous” sort of thing, where he admits he’s sick and tired of being the villain of his game, Fix-It Felix. He doesn’t understand why Felix always gets a medal and praise for fixing, when he would have nothing to fix if Ralph hadn’t done his job and wrecked everything.While his fellow villains understand and offer advice, his attempt to express this frustration to his gamemates quickly goes south. Ralph ends up invading another game in order to get a medal and prove that he’s just as good as any hero. During his hunt for approval he manages to spread a virus, meet some really nasty game characters and befriend a sweet little homeless girl named Vanellope, who’s much more than meets the eye.
When boiled down to its basics, the movie follows the classic „good defeating evil“ formula, which has been done over and over and over, but the story doesn’t rely on it completely and that’s what makes Wreck-It Ralph so cool. We start out with a brutish antagonist that suddenly finds himself in a literal Candyland where adorable children race in cars made of waffles and chocolate. Talk about stepping out of your comfort zone. He meets an incredibly annoying and rude youngster that robs him of the one thing that could make his life better. And then comes the character and relationship development. Wreck-It Ralph might be a fairy tale, but its heroes are multidimensional and moving. On top of that, it doesn’t shy away from some seriously somber themes and frankly distrubing scenes, and it uses the environment of the arcade to its almost full potential.
Strap in, folks, because I could write a bloody book on Wreck-It Ralph.
The characters, Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (voiced by Sarah Silverman) are the prime example of how this movie thinks of its target audience – it’s mostly very young, but that doesn‘t mean it’s also mostly stupid and has to be fed flat, morally black and white characters whose actions are either perfectly good or perfectly bad and there is no grayness whatsoever. That alone is refreshing. Both Ralph and Vanellope are the means through which some pretty heavy topics are explored – Ralph is experiencing an existential crisis and possibly a burnout, and Vanellope is A HOMELESS CHILD, that is being bullied and ostracized for a disability.
Like, holy shit. That’s kinda a lot for a kids‘ movie, innit?!
I mean, it’s not like the movie is screaming this into your face, but the sole fact that these topics are included at all is thrilling to me, because it gives us a story based on actual issues that real life people face, instead of magic and unicorns and stuff. Thanks to this Ralph and Vanellope’s motivations are understandable and relatable – they want a better life for themselves (who doesn’t), even if it means doing some pretty shady things and making some really bad decisions.
And both of them get that better life, only in a slightly different way. That is another reason why I think Wreck-It Ralph is great – the endings aren’t your traditional fairy tale endings. It teaches us that before you’re anything else, you need to be yourself. Ralph wrecks stuff, it’s the thing he’s good at, and at the end of the day, he doesn’t need to follow some made up hero manual to actually be a hero or be happy. Vanellope is a princess and she cares about it for approximately half a minute, then she goes back to her hoodie and soft profanities, because that’s what feels right for her. The movie shows its young viewers, who might be in a vulnerable period of their lives, that being themselves is okay. And to me that seems like a pretty good message to have, alongside the already mentioned „good conquers evil“ business.
Another thing I‘d like to talk about is the setting. I‘ve established in the beginning that in my opinion, arcades fucking rock and have tons of potential as a setting for a story, especially one whose heroes are the game characters themselves. I wanted some heavy duty creativity from Wreck-It Ralph and I certainly got it. The candy kingdom of Sugar Rush actually made me wanna play Sugar Rush! I loved every detail in it – the exploding Mentos in CocaCola, the Oreo guards, the Laffy Taffy! Not only made me crave something sweet like crazy, but I could actually see myself hogging the Sugar Rush machine in an arcade, trying to see as much of the game as possible. I remember watching it for the first time and thinking “wow, this is why I love animation”.
My second favourite part of the environment has to be the giant junction between games. This is the kind of setting that allows you to just go nuts with intertextuality, sneak in easter eggs or just use some character that didn’t make it into the finished product. There are so many details that no matter how many times I watch it, I always have something to look at.
Kinda like a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Which is a really weird comparison, I realize that.
My point is, the animation isn’t lazy. Wreck-It Ralph is right up there with the food creatures of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. They saw an opportunity, they grabbed it and they ran with it.
Wreck-It Ralph is a movie where serious matters are in a near perfect balance with the fun stuff. If you‘d strip away the colours and cuteness, you‘d be left with a pretty dark story. If you’d strip away the the heavy themes and flawed characters, you’d be left with brain-melting infantility. The movie doesn’t underestimate its young audience, manages to be fun and have a deeper meaning besides reminding us that good people are good and bad people are bad.
I just really, really, really like Wreck-It Ralph.
(Tele)viewer´s Diary 