Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

When I first heard about this Disney animated film I thought, that's ingenious, just perfect for kids. The story centers on Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) the villain of the fictitious early 1980's video game Fix-It Felix Jr, which reminds me a bit of the actual 1980's video game Rampage, only the object here is the fix the building not to wreck-it. After years of demurring Ralph decides to visit a support group for other video game villains held after hours at the arcade where he lives. That's the big conceit of the film, video game character at an arcade interacting with each other in various games at night when the arcade is closed. Ralph at heart is a gentle man, frustrated by being cast as the villain and how the other characters in his game treat him so poorly, especially when he is essential to there continued existence in the arcade. Anyway Ralph decides that he'd rather be a hero then a villain and sneaks into a first person shooter game called Hero's Duty in order to win a medal that he plans to take back to his home game to earn the respect of the denizens of the apartment tower whose job it is for him to wreck. Ralph does get the medal but ends up in an out of control space ship that he crashes into a candy themed cart racing game called Sugar Rush, were he meats a little girl and 'glitch' named Vanellope von Schweetz  (voiced by Sarah Silverman) and it goes on from there.

Now I'd seen bits and pieces of this film before because my niece and nephews quite like it, as I suspected they would when I first heard this movie was being made. Anyway the out of order bits I'd seen didn't seem to gel that great, but there is an arc to the proceedings that now having seen the movie all the way through, works better then I would have expected it too. The film contains lots of fun video game cameos by the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog and Q*bert, and the voice cast is a pretty great and corky mix including Jane Lynch, Jack McBrayer, Ed O'Neil and Mindy Kaling. All in all a satisfying outing. ***