Wreck It Ralph

Its been an interesting life being a gamer. Personally, I remember owning an Atari 2600, with Pac man, Galaxia, Q'bert, and many more. And with this started a passion for games. I grew up through the Mega-drive era (used to borrow games from blockbuster for the weekend) the N64, the Dreamcast, and then the the PlayStation era. In the 90's we had our own TV shows, even with cheat codes for the latest games, and then mainstream acceptance died out for a few years. Video games were accused of being violent, and It was an odd wilderness to be in, still being interested in a passion that's been labelled by the press and demonized etc. few years go by, games carry on making money in the background and growing then suddenly COD comes along and we have billboards the size of buildings advertising the latest games. An especially violent game in its own right, as popular as the latest films with huge advertising budgets. This in turn has made Gaming become a pastime for every guy/girl in the country, and not just the hardcore fans that were there in the start. What I would never have expected however, is a Disney film that advertises itself a love letter to the games of yore.

I first heard about this film actually in a games magazine, where it mentioned the many references to gaming culture within this movie. It seemed like an odd choice to me, almost too niche. But perhaps I was underestimating the cultural influence video games have had on us. It showed characters such as Bowser from Mario, the purple Rhino from Altered Beast, and several Street fighter characters having a Bad Anon Meeting. The trailer  brings you to assume that these sections are a big part of the movie, and this is actually misleading. Having now seen it, I have to say that the references in the movie are indeed great for gamers, but they do not take up a large portion of the film.

Our main plot actually revolves around Ralph escaping his game to collect a medal and prove hes not a bad guy. This brings him to the sweetie based kart game, where he meets a little girl and the main plot actually revolves around him trying to help her win a race, with some side plot about some bug things from Heroes duty that followed him on his travels there.

When the film focuses on the 5 main characters we kind of lose the early game references & characters, and thus they kind of become lost in the ether. I was actually watching the movie in the cinema and realized the audience was almost entirely adults. I also seriously doubt that many people under a certain age will recognise the earlier references and characters. It seems to me that the film didn't really know who its target audience was and this isn't a bad thing on the whole, but the film is not the full on love letter to retro games it proposed to be. It is to some extent and the detail and characters in the background at the start will please many older game fans. But this is a Disney film, and as such it focuses on its main characters, it has a message to bring and it has to appeal to kids the best way it can. Wreck it Ralph himself is a likable character, and so you do root for him but at the heart of it, it is a kids film not a gamers film.

Wreck it Ralph started its ad campaign sometime last summer, and despite it coming out the USA in November, only just came out here. Presumably it was to avoid the big names over Christmas, and its probably a good thing for its viewing figures for it to have no competition. Its a good family movie and I did enjoy it, but for hardcore and older gamers they may not have the patience to stick with it.