Wreck-It Ralph review

Wreck-It Ralph is the latest film from Disney owned Pixar Animation. I'm a big Pixar fan. I don't think it's their best film but I do recommend it especially to classic video game fans. I'm not a gamer but the film has traditional adventure elements that we have seen in most Pixar films. I just don't think it's as good as Up or the Toy Story films. The short film Paperman is shown before Wreck-It Ralph. It's the story of an office worker who uses paper airplanes to reconnect with a girl he met on the train. Paperman seems very Chuck Jones influenced. The frustration of the office worker is the kind of thing Jones liked to do because he was like that in real life. Wile E. Coyote's constant failure is what fuels Road Runner cartoons. It was pretty good. The story of Wreck-It Ralph is that video game characters come to life after the arcade closes. It's very similar to Bob Clampett's books come to life cartoon Have You Got Any Castles. Except this is more elaborate of course. Wreck-It Ralph is the bad guy in the old school video game Fix-It Felix. But Ralph feels unappreciated and even goes to therapy to address his concerns. He thinks if he wins a gold medal, the video game characters will appreciate him more. He wants to be a hero. So he discovers a first person shooter game that gives medals. And he gets a medal but gets thrown into the video game Sugar Rush and his medal is stolen by the sassy girl character Vanellope. This is a game aimed at teen girls. She is not part of the main game because she is defective. The problem is Ralph is missing from Fix-It Felix and if he doesn't return, the game will be retired permanently. So Fix-It Felix goes looking for him and is accompanied by the badass female Calhoun from the shooting game. BTW, that character is voiced by Jane Lynch and looks like her too. The adventure they go through is about what you would expect from a film like this. My only problem is we have seen this kind of story from Pixar before. I wouldn't mind seeing something different. Video game fans will enjoy the appearances by characters like PacMan, Qbert and Sonic The Hedgehog. I think the film could have had more humour. It's a very good film and I recommend it to Pixar fans. But it's not a great film. Check out the trailer.