Wrecked

[muckefuck]

I watched Wreck-It Ralph tonight and enjoyed the hell out of it. I made only a token effort to get the Old Man to watch it with me, because I'm sure he has exactly zero warm feelies for any video arcade game. My moments of squee! included the first appearance of Q-bert and cameo by Beard Papa. (I think I may have actually yelled "Beard Papa!" at the screen.) It's probably for the best the Japanese girl group who sing the theme were some act I'd never heard of; has it been Shonen Knife, I would've shrieked like a little chiisai gyaru.

Even back in the 80s I was never a big video gamer, so a lot of the references passed me by--I couldn't've named any of the villains at the bad guy group and I wouldn't've picked up on the resemblance of Sugar Rush to Mario Kart if I hadn't just watched my nephew play that over vacation. Part of me wanted to watch the whole movie again just to have a chance to catch some of the more clever details. Oh, and given that the main characters were clearly modelled on the voice actors, I was surprised to discover Ralph was voiced by John C. Reilly rather than Mark Ruffalo.

Comments

[mollyc-q.livejournal.com]

I've needed something silly and well crafted, this I think needs to make it into a netflix queue.

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

I was mildly disappointed because the video game references didn't amount to more than a few cameos and the main plot was a predictable trope-fest and not quite nerdy enough. Unlike many Pixar flicks, this was inventive in style and setting only.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Chacun à son goût, but comparing it with Pixar's productions I'd put it in the high-middle of the pack. Behind the Toy Story movies or the Incredibles or the robot segments of WALL-E, or (certainly!) the simultaneous hilarity/gut-wrenching exploration of grief that is Up. But ahead of the Cars franchise, A Bug's Life, or either Monsters movie. (And while I'd expect to be in the minority on this, I found it both better and more affecting than Ratatouille.)

But I'm not sure I'm bothered by it being predictable-- at large scale, the shape of most Pixar stories is pretty knowable once the characters and central conflict are established. (The specifics may be surprising, but I don't know that I saw, e.g., the romantic pairing in Wreck-It Ralph coming till the story was well underway-- especially since it's not immediately obvious that either character involved must even have a romance arc.)

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

I won't argue about Cars, that one wasn't very good. But Monsters Inc. is still among my favorites, and Ratatouille was definitely better than Toy Story 1 or 2. Ralph had, um, one (?) clever idea - arcade game characters traveling between machines through power lines. The rest was mostly just references to popular (video game) culture (glitches, secret areas, game hacking) and not very inventive, it didn't expand much on existing ideas. Monsters took a popular trope (monsters in the closet) and spun an entire alternate universe around it.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree about Ratatouille. For me it was visually interesting, but that's about it, while I found the Toy Story movies both funnier and more moving. (2 is probably the weakest of the series, but I'm not sure I can watch "When She Loved Me" dry-eyed even now.) (ETA: Nope.) And Ratatouille's ending just doesn't fit with the rest of the story. (Suddenly no one cares about the thing that's been hanging like a sword of Damocles over their head all movie, and led to a disastrous climax, because... ?)

But lots of people consider it a first-rank Pixar film, so there must be something there I just don't see.

Likewise I found Monsters Inc. very entertaining, but slight. I don't know that I find its scream/laugh powered civilization inherently more creative than the behind-the-scenes video game world of Wreck-It Ralph, with its intra-game class structures, inter-game culture clashes, and attempts to evade or transcend mortality and destiny by different means fair and foul.

But ultimately it's about what works for each of us. I didn't regret seeing Monsters, Inc., but I didn't rush off to rewatch it, and I waited for the Blu-Ray for Monsters University. (Which was... okay.) Wreck-It Ralph I saw in the theater, then bought it on disc and rewatched it as soon as I could. And odds are decent I'll watch it again.