In a small arcade filled with video games from the past thirty years or so, all the characters get together when the doors close for the night. They fall into two groups, the good guys and the bad guys. Ralph is a bad guy, kind of a cross between Donkey Kong and one of the monsters from the coin op game Rampage. As the bad guy, Ralph misses out on the fun stuff that the hero of his game, Fix-it Felix gets for saving the day every game.
Ralph decides to follow in the footsteps of an old car racer who left his game and tried to take over another racing game. Ralph doesn’t want to take over another game, he just wants to be appreciated in his own game world. He wants to win a Medal.
This leads him to an alien war game, where he meets a tough as nail drill Sargent type solider with bowling ball shaped breasts and a can do attitude. In the war game he wins his Medal, but ends up taking an alien monster with him when he leaves that game and heads to a new one-a child’s racing game filled with candy and glitter.
Ralph spends the bulk of his time in the candy cane and lollipop world where he runs into a smart mouthed Glitch who has been banned from racing. We met the King of this world, who has an annoyingly bad Ed Wynn impersonation and likes to race. The best gag is in the entire film happens when we see the King’s castle and watch his Honor Guard drilling outside the gates. This was a laugh out loud moment for me.
Wreck It Ralph was a fun film, a few good sight gags and a few tear jerking moments. The bad guy was foreshadowed at every opportunity, and yet I was still surprised when he was reveled near the end of the film. Being an arcade junkie in the 1980s it was fun to see such characters as Qbert and Pacman make cameos here. The many inside jokes about arcane games is fun, but you don’t need to know anything about games to care about Ralph’s journey to become a Hero.
