Before I get into my review I would like to say that I was blindsided by the short. I had no idea there would be a short for a Disney movie. – as in, not Disney Pixar. The short was super cute, and I’ll say that I had a smile on my face the entire time.
Yes, this review is on the long side, so if you don’t feel like reading the entire thing, here is my super short review: HIGH SCORE!
In all honesty, I thought that Fix It Felix Jr. was a game that existed back in the day – and that 2012 was its 30th year anniversary. I was very excited about that, but little did I know, Disney had created the game for this movie. Clearly, I’m not an expert gamer… or a gamer of any level or status.
When it came to video games, I had only played Nintendo, but usually just watched my older brother play arcade games. It wasn’t until the Nintendo 64 came out that I thought of video games to be a fun pastime. For the most part, I was never good (aside from N64’s Mario Kart and 007). As a kid that grew up in the 90’s I was quite excited that Disney created a movie that has to do with old school video games in today’s world. I was worried that I wouldn’t catch the majority of the references to the video game characters, but I found that I was able to pick out more than I thought!
For those of you who may not know what the movie is about, I’ll sum it up. This movie takes place in an arcade and Ralph is considered the ‘bad guy’ in one of the arcade games called Fix it Felix Jr. He wrecks a building and the ‘hero’ Felix jumps around fixing the windows. At the end of the day, all the buildings inhabitants praise Felix for his good work, while Ralph spends his nights alone and excluded. Ralph wants to prove to the characters in his game that he can be a good guy, so he “goes turbo” in order to earn a hero’s medal in a different game to gain some ‘wreck-ognition’ (I’m not that smart to come up with that, but I couldn’t not add it) ;).
Before I go any further with this review I want to clear up a few things:
1) To “go turbo” means to jump from your game to another. This is bad because if you die in game that is not your own, you actually die. While I’m on the subject of going turbo, I would like to mention that I read a few reviews that said that people didn’t understand what that meant and the movie should have explained it earlier. I’m not sure why, but I actually knew that ‘going turbo’ had a similar meaning to ‘going rouge’, so that wasn’t an issue for me.
2) Because Ralph is considered the villain in his game, he will never have the opportunity to get a medal, hence why he has to leave his game to obtain a medal from a different game.
3) When Ralph goes turbo, he goes to Game Central Station, which is a train station that is actually a multiple electrical outlet (picture below) in the arcade; and that is how the characters can go from one game to another. I LOVED that. I thought that that was one of the most clever things in this movie. I will never look at one of those things the same. :)
I also really liked the airport-like security while trying to go to a different game and how you can’t bring certain things (cherries) back. I absolutely love it when a movie integrates everyday things with a twist that fits into the movie and isn’t forced. This aspect of this movie had to be one of my favourite things and there was a lot of them: Nesquick sand as quicksand, the Nintendo controller as the safe lock and the Nintendo password (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start) as the safe combination (what a great throwback).
When Ralph goes turbo, he really only goes to 2 different games (Hero’s Duty and Sugar Rush) with the majority in the latter. Going into this movie, I was hoping that Ralph would interact with more characters and go to different games, but now having seen the movie, I wouldn’t change a thing. Although I loved Street Fighters, I don’t think Ryu or any other video game character would have fit into this movie any better than they already were.
It is an animated movie, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have a great screenplay ("I'm not a glitch. I'm just pixelated" - Vanellope). I liked how Ralph commented on how violent video games are nowadays and how Felix comments on the quality of the animation. Although I forget who said ‘your Candyness’ (as in ‘your highness’) to King Candy, I thought that was pretty witty too.
As for the voiceover actors, I thought they were superbly casted. I don’t think I’ve loved a voiceover for another [animated] movie since Finding Nemo. John C Reilly as Ralph was the best of them all. He has a knack for voiceovers; it also helps that I see a resemblance between Ralph and JCR. I remember that a long time ago I heard Sarah Silverman’s voice and did not like it. But Silverman as Vanellope von Schweetz was perfect! I had no idea who was doing the voice for Felix, but once I found out who it was (Jack McBrayer), again, I thought perfect. Jane Lynch as Sgt. Calhoun was great; it’s a voice you hear and immediately, you know she means business. I don’t know what else to say about the voiceover actors in this movie… I’m actually at a loss for words. Everyone was excellent.
It’s not easy to make the viewer care about more than one character, and it’s probably harder to do so in an animated movie. But this movie does it so well. You really feel for Ralph and his desire to be seen in a good light. And even though Vanellope was annoying at the start, she grew on you too. Ralph and Vanellope made a great pair because they were both outcasts and they both were trying to gain the acceptance of others – and I for one, felt a connection to both of them. I was very interested in Felix and Sgt Calhoun’s stories. As secondary characters, there was enough time spent on each so the viewer didn’t feel as if they were added for the sake of being filler characters.
Random’s:
-I loved the music during Hero’s Duty (and the music during the rest of the movie – very fitting).
-I liked how Sour Bill had a sour personality.
This movie never dragged at any point; everything added was relevant and the story moved forward at a good pace. This has to be one of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen in a while. I cannot wait to buy this and watch it again. I’m sure I’ll love it just as much and I’ll probably pick up on more of the little details and other video game references. It’s a great movie for viewers of all ages.
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