Review of Disney’s “Wreck-It-Ralph”

• By supernovamommy
• 2 November, 2012
• Comments Off

Review of Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph in 3D

by Jessica Clark

Thanks to SuperNoVAmommy.com , my ten year old son, B, and I were fortunate to preview Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph in 3D ( http://disney.go.com/wreck-it-ralph/) last week.  We invited B’s 8 year old friend, J, and his mom to go with us.  Walt Disney’s Animated Studios describes Wreck-It Ralph as such: “For decades, Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) has been overshadowed by Fix-It Felix, Jr. (voice of Jack McBrayer), the good-guy star of their game who always gets to save the day. Tired of playing the role of a bad guy, Ralph takes matters into his own massive hands and sets off on a journey across the arcade through multiple generations of video games to prove he’s got what it takes to be a hero.  On his quest, Ralph meets tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (voice of Jane Lynch) from the first-person action game Hero’s Duty, and feisty misfit Vanellope von Schweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman) from the candy-coated cart racing game, Sugar Rush, who may just be his first real friend. But everything changes when a deadly enemy is unleashed, threatening the entire arcade and Vanellope herself. Ralph finally gets his chance to save the day—but can he do it in time?”*

I love that Disney continues the tradition of showing a “short” before their feature presentations.  We saw “Paperman” before Wreck-It Ralph.  It contained no dialogue but young and old completely understood what was going on.  We laughed, cringed and rooted at all the places the animators intended us to. It was adorable!

When my family goes to the movies, we do not pay extra to see them in 3D.  In my experience, we notice the 3D effects during the first 10 minutes or so of a movie, and rarely notice it afterwards.  However, Wreck-It Ralph was different and I was impressed.  One particular scene in the movie was taking place in the video game Hero’s Duty and I started to panic.  The theater seemed to be filling with flies but no one else appeared to notice or be bothered by them as I was.  I finally realized it was floating ash in the movie from battle debris – phew!

Wreck-It Ralph is not a movie I would recommend for children under 1st grade and even those 1st grade and up, parents need to use their own judgement, because there are some scary scenes, characters and language you may not want your children to hear.  During a meeting of video game “bad guys”, a cyborg-like character reaches into the chest of a zombie and pulls his heart out.  The movie contains potty talk, name calling, a man who gets eaten by a giant bug (called cybugs) and Jane Lynch’s character, Sergeant Calhoun, is an angry, name-calling leader who hits.

Sergeant Calhoun

The cybugs were actually scary to my 10 year old but not to the 8 year old who came with us.  So, every child is different and I want you to have these details so you can make the decision for your family.

As with most children’s movies, Wreck-It Ralph has a lesson to teach.  Although my son talked all about how cool it was to see the video game characters he knew and how much he would like to play the games that were created for this movie, he understood the message the movie was trying to tell him when I asked.  “Don’t think people are bad because of what they do.  You never know who people really are until you take the time to get to know them,” my son responded.  (Proud parent moment!)

Vanellope

Vanellope von Schweetz  is bullied and not included for being different; Ralph is ostracized for filling the role of the bad guy in his video game.  One character in the meeting of the bad guys pointed out the flaw in other’s perceptions of them.  He said just because they were “bad guys” that didn’t make them bad guys.  My favorite line was spoken by Ralph in the beginnning of the movie, and I think it will hit home with some adults out there.  He said, “It’s hard to love your job when no one else seems to like you for doing it.”

I enjoyed looking around “Game Central”, where everyone hung out after the arcade was closed, to find video game characters I recognized from my childhood.  I knew some that B did not and vice versa.  I even heard people around us call out names of characters they recognized that neither B nor I knew.  Of course, there are also a few jokes thrown in just for us adults that go over our kids’ heads, and we appreciate that.

My son enjoyed the movie, the graphics were great and I loved the game and characters of Sugar Rush.  The parent in me wishes that the name calling and potty talk was not put in to cater to what the kids like to hear.  But I talked like that as a kid, I’m sure my son talks like that when I am out of earshot and it helps the kids to identify with the characters.  A particular bullying scene upset me, due to the amount of damage a gang of Sugar Rush characters did to something of Vannelope’s.  However, it’s a part of our kids’ lives and they need to learn to feel empathy for victims, empowerment to stand up to bullies and see examples of coming back from being bullied.  On the whole, it was a pleasant experience.

*Movie description taken from http://disney.go.com/wreck-it-ralph/#/about