Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at Wreck-It Ralph

Welcome back to Deep Dive Disney everyone. Say, it’s actually been quite a while since we’ve covered a movie I haven’t seen. Yeah, despite the reputation I’ve garnered for myself as a Disney Nerd I have never seen the 2012 film Wreck-It Ralph or its 2018 sequel. Believe it or not, I actually boycotted it when it was released, the reasons for which are… incredibly dumb, but we’ll get to that soon enough. In a similar fashion to how Pixar tried out something in Disney’s wheelhouse by making a fairy tale about princesses and witches and all that, this time around, Disney tried to do something with a similar setup to Pixar’s most famous franchise, Toy Story, only with video games instead of toys to adapt with the times. I swear to God, there was some kind of wager between the two studios going on in the early 2010’s to see who could do a better job emulating the other’s style. Given the fact that Brave took the Oscar for Best Animated feature that year, I’d say Pixar ended up winning that bet. Anywho, as I said, our story takes us into a world where Video Game characters come to life once the arcade is closed. The titular Wreck-It Ralph is the main antagonist in a game called Fix-It Felix Jr., where it’s Ralph’s Job to wreck the apartment complex and the players, in control of Felix, must fix it before he can destroy the building. Ralph is really good at his job and has helped keep the game a favorite in the arcade for nearly thirty years, but because he’s the villain of the game, he’s never appreciated and even often met with hatred even when the arcade is closed. Desperate to prove that he can be a hero and earn a medal like Felix does anytime someone beats the game, Ralph jumps into a newer game called Hero’s Duty, something that’s kind of a no-no in the arcade after a character named Turbo tried it and ended up causing both his own game and the game he jumped into to be unplugged, a death sentence for video game worlds and the characters who inhabit them if they’re unable to evacuate to the neutral hub world in time. Ralph actually does manage to earn himself a medal in Hero’s Duty, but soon after, things go sideways and he crash lands in a racing game called Sugar Rush. There, Ralph meets Vanellope, a glitch in the game with dreams of being an actual racer. At first Ralph finds Vanellope annoying (I don’t blame him) but the more time they spend together, the more they grow as friends. However, not all is as sweet as it seems in the land of Sugar Rush as it’s ruler, the mysterious King Candy, has clearly been messing with the game’s code. Worse yet, Ralph accidently brought a deadly Cy-Bug infestation from Hero’s Duty with him to Sugar Rush, meaning that the entire game could be destroyed. So what are we waiting for, let’s dive right into, Wreck-It Ralph.

Main Character:

First thing’s first, Ralph is voiced by the great John C. Reilly, primarily known for comedic roles in films like Talladega Nights and Stepbrothers but also has a talent for dramatic roles as well. Reilly ends up fitting the role of Ralph perfectly with his comedic yet sincere delivery. As we said above, Ralph is a video game antagonist who dreams of being a good guy. It’s not that Ralph doesn’t like his job, quite the contrary, he’s really good at wrecking things and takes pride in what he does, but as he says, it’s hard to love your job if no one likes you for doing it. And indeed, everyone else in Ralph’s game treats him like absolute shit. Seriously, I haven’t seen a character get treated this badly for something that isn’t his fault since Dumbo. It’s not like he’s wrecking their homes out of malice, that’s literally his job, the very reason he exists. This is not unlike Jack Gleeson (Joffrey from game of thrones) receiving death threats because they hated his character. He’s getting shat on because he’s good at his job. They don’t even invite him to the party to celebrate their games thirtieth anniversary. What the Hell!? He’s every bit as important to the game’s success as Felix and the Nicelanders and these guys treat him like shit, and then these assholes are somehow surprised that he doesn’t show up for work? Come on! At least Mario invites Bowser to play tennis with him once in a while. What makes this especially mean-spirited is that even within the story of his own game Ralph really isn’t a villain. Literally, the opening cutscene of the Fix-It Felix Jr. arcade game shows Ralph’s tree stump home getting bulldozed to build an apartment complex while he’s forced to live in the dump. Jesus Christ, if that happened to me, I’d be pretty pissed off too. Jesus Christ, who designed this game, Donald Trump? What all this adds up to is the film doing a really great job engendering sympathy for its main character. From frame one you feel for Ralph and you really want him to finally get recognized as more than a bad guy or at least not treated like shit anymore. You can tell that his desire to be a good guy for once is genuine and he’s the sort of guy you really want to root for.

Villain:

A lot of people lump King Candy here in with the twist villains and I don’t know if that fits. Sure there’s a twist about his true identity towards the end of the film, but seriously, you can smell villain all over this guy long before we find out who he really is. The dude looks and sounds like The Mad Hatter’s asshole cousin who even he won’t invite to a tea party. Voiced by Alan Tudyk doing his best Ed Wynn impression, King Candy starts off as the self-absorbed and pompous ruler of sugar rush. While he’s certainly a jerk, the king doesn’t initially come across as that big of a threat. However, we learn in small hints throughout the film that he’s got something far more sinister going on, directly interfering with the games code in order to erase everyone’s memory of Vanellope and keep himself as the top racer. We eventually learn that he’s not even from Sugar Rush at all but is, in fact, the previously discussed Turbo, a video game character who was so self-absorbed that he when another game became more popular than his, he tried to take it over, resulting in both games getting permanently shut down. What the denizens of the arcade did not know was that Turbo survived and found his way into Sugar Rush, reprogramming the game and creating his King Candy identity. He even went so far as to remove Vanellope from the game’s code and rewrite everyone’s memory so no one would get suspicious. He’s not exactly one of the best villains in Disney’s library but he has his moments. He actually gets one of the creepier final battles in a while but we’ll save that for the Dark Disney Factor.

Side Characters:

There are several cameos from established video game characters such as Pac-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, Tapper, Ryu & Ken and more. It’s pretty cool and I appreciate Disney going the extra mile and getting the original voice actors when able.

I’ll say for Felix, he is the only one in his game who actually makes an attempt to be nice to Ralph. Not a very earnest attempt but at least he tries. Unlike the Nicelanders, who seem to outright despise Ralph and believe he deserves his fate, Felix seems ignorant of the fact that Ralph may not be okay with being treated like literal garbage all the time. In short, Felix is kind of a moron.

Calhoun, voiced by the great Jane Lynch, is the main character of Hero’s Duty. She’s every badass female space marine you’ve seen in games like Halo, Mass Effect or Gears of War. I actually like how it’s explicitly stated that she was programmed with the most tragic backstory ever, said backstory being her fiancé getting eaten by Cy-Bugs on their wedding day. As a result she’s a little intense.

Throughout the film, Felix and Calhoun develop an unlikely romance while I personally find adorable. I love how Felix is this lovable idiotic goody-two-shoes and Calhoun is this foul mouthed badass super soldier with an itchy trigger finger. They should work as a couple, but against all odds, they do.

However, I think the thing that can make or break how you feel about this movie is your opinion of Vanellope. And… I’m really sorry but… I just found her annoying. I don’t dislike Sarah Silverman and she’s clearly doing her best, but that voice is super grating and her constant over-reliance of juvenile humor just gets really old after a while. I actually was getting into her friendship with Ralph and how they see one another as kindred spirits, but I just really wasn’t that into the character herself. She didn’t completely ruin the movie, but I had a hard time caring about her like the movie clearly wanted me to.

Memorable Scenes:

I really liked the opening scene where Ralph is in a sort of Bad Guys anonymous meeting with a bunch of recognizable video game villains. It gives a natural excuse for exposition and sets up the kind of world this is right away. And on top of that, the cameos are neat. However, as much as I enjoy it, I do have a pretty big bone to pick with this scene. Remember earlier when I said I boycotted this movie when it came out for an incredibly stupid reason? Well, you’re about to find out what that reason is. Warning, if you don’t want to hear a long self-indulgent rant from nit-picking video game nerd who obsesses over minute details you may want to skip to the next section. See, the most prominently featured character in this scene and arguably the most prominent video game cameo in the film is Zangief, the big hairy Russian guy from my favorite video game franchise of all time, Street Fighter. Zangief famously says the following line that was used in the first Wreck-It-Ralph trailer: “Zangief, you are bad guy, but that does not mean you are bad guy.” The problem with this is that Zangief was never a bad guy in the first place! Sure, he’s a hulking muscle-headed brute who likes to beat people up, but that does not necessarily a bad guy make. In fact, by entering an international fighting tournament, he’s likely dealing with his impulse to beat people up in the most healthy and legally sanctioned way possible. What’s more, in Street Fighter IV, which at the time was still relatively recent but had still been out for a few years before this movie, Zangief’s main goal was to raise money to save a Russian orphanage. I’m sorry, but that’s not a bad guy thing to do. And I just know some of you geniuses out there are going to point out how Zagief was on Bison’s side in the 1994 Street Fighter Movie and is therefore a bad guy, accept the film goes out of its way to show that the only reason Zangief is working for Bison in the first place is because he’s too dumb to know the Bison is evil and once he figures it out, he immediately joins up with the heroes. Being too much of a moron to realize your boss is a supervillain doesn’t necessarily make you evil, it just makes you… well quite frankly it makes you… Kronk! And what’s more, Street Fighter, as a fighting game, actually allows you to play as the villains. In fact, M. Bison, the primary villain of the series, who is also in this scene mind you, is my most frequently used character in several Street Fighter games. So even if Zangief were evil, why would he feel unappreciated like Ralph? At least he gets to win every once in a while. They could have given this line to literally anyone else in the scene like Robotnik or Bowser or the Pac-Man ghost and would have been fine. The only reason I can think of as to why it went with Zangief is because someone thought his Russian accent might be funny which is a level of stupid I’m nowhere near in the mood to get into. And the icing on this bullshit cake is Zangief’s line about “Crushing Man’s Skull Like Sparrow Egg Between Thighs” is not something that ever happens in any Street Fighter game. That sounds more like some Mortal Kombat shit and since a Street Fighter X Mortal Kombat crossover game is little more than a distant pipe dream at the time I’m writing this, let alone nine years ago when this movie came out, it’s clear that these filmmakers have no idea what the hell they were talking about. I know this is an incredibly dumb point to get hung up on but it bugs dammit. Maybe it wasn’t so awful as to warrant a boycott but as a life-long Street Fighter fan, it really sticks in my craw.

Story:

So the overall message here is that we are not defined by our jobs or our roles in society. Ralph is a Bad Guy in a video game but he’s also a good-hearted and sensitive soul. Vanellope is a glitch, but she’s also a really good racer with true passion for what she does. It also shows that you don’t need everyone to love you so long as you’re loved by the people who are really important to you, shown by how Ralph is now confident about his status as a good guy due to how much Vanellope loves him. All of that is all well and good and it’s presented well in the film, but it gets a little bogged down by this movie’s main issue, pacing. The first third of the movie where the main focus is Ralph trying to prove that he can be a hero despite everyone telling him it’s impossible actually had me pretty invested. The idea was cool, Ralph was likable, it really felt like we were off to a good start, then we get to Sugar Rush and things kind of grind to a halt as Ralph’s story kind of takes a backseat to Vanellope’s. That’s… cool I guess but I came here to see Ralph and his journey and now you want me to get invested in an entirely new character who isn’t really doing much to endear herself to me. So often I kept wanting to see the story become Ralph’s again but it doesn’t really get there until the climax and by then the damage is done. It just feels very odd that the film would advertise itself as a video game villain trying to be a hero but then decides to throw in this side quest that dominates the rest of the film.

The Dark Disney Factor:

I was actually surprised that the scene where Kano, the villainous arms dealer from the Mortal Kombat franchise, performs his signature finishing move where he rips out his opponent’s still beating heart made it past the Disney censors. I’m not complaining, I just can’t believe that the film kept its PG rating after that.

However, what I’d really like to discuss are the Cy-Bugs, the main enemies in Hero’s Duty. Unlike the other characters, the Cy-Bugs are a mindless swarm, unaware that they are in a video game and will consume anything and everything indiscriminately, which is why it’s a very bad thing that they follow Ralph into Sugar Rush. They also come with this neat gimmick of assimilating the properties of anything they eat. When one of the Cy-Bugs eats King Candy towards the end of the film, it causes the two beings to merge into a horrifying hybrid creature just in time for the final boss battle. Can I just say, it’s nice to see a villain that takes on a monstrous final form. It feels like it’s been far too long. You know what I’m talking about, Maleficent turning into a dragon, Jafar turning into a giant cobra, Judge Doom turning into my nightmares for the past twenty years, you get the idea. And King Candy’s final form does not disappoint. Seeing King Candy’s head on the body of a killer mutant space bug is nightmare fuel to be sure. Even more disturbing is how he’s vanquished. Cy-Bugs are drawn to light see, so Ralph sets off a volcano to essentially create a gigantic bug zapper. Now that he’s part Cy-Bug, King Candy is drawn to the light as well, well aware of the grim fate that awaits him but utterly powerless to prevent it.

Final Thoughts: This is, in my humble opinion, not one of Disney's better movies. It's not terrible and there are a lot of cool concepts contained within but it's plagued with pacing issues that are difficult to ignore. Overall, it's a fun little movie, but not quite on the level as some of the other films in this era. Speaking of films in this era, the time has finally come for Deep Dive Disney to take on what is arguably Disney's biggest hit of the twenty first century. It is a film that basically took over the world and left a cultural impact that endures to this very day. Though personally, I don't know if it's worth all the hype, maybe they should just... Let It Go... See you next time