A Review: "Wreck-It Ralph"

A Review: "Wreck-It Ralph"

Oh, Disney. I thought we had lost you for a bit there. After Pixar became legendary, you were just kinda left there pooping out movies like "Home on the Range" and "Chicken Little". You had gone from "amazing" to "meh", and, for a while, it seemed as though there was no going back. However, like many characters from your movies, you pulled yourself up, dusted yourself out, and started pumping out great movies again. "Princess and the Frog", "Tangled", and now this.

"Wreck-It Ralph" tells the story of Ralph, a classic video game villain from the arcade game "Fix-It Felix, Jr." On the game's 30th anniversary, Ralph isn't invited to a party being thrown by the citizens of the video game. He had already been disillusioned with the concept of being forced to be the bad guy by the game's programming, but this was the last straw. He sets out to other video games in the arcade in an attempt to win a medal and prove his heroism. However, he doesn't realize that he has set in motion a plot that may just ruin his own game and get several other unplugged for good. 

This movie's strengths lies mainly in it's characters. Our leading quartet is very likeable (and the villain is very interesting, but I don't want to spoil anything). You always root for Ralph to succeed, even when his actions cause more harm than good. John C. Reilly is perfect at playing the misunderstood sad sack who just wants people to notice him (see also, "Chicago"). Felix is the perfect foil to Ralph. He's so pure and perfect (even when he doesn't want to be) that it becomes simultaneously hilarious and endearing. Jack McBrayer brings just the right amount of peppy and old-fashioned heroism to the role, while still knowing when to tone it back for more emotional scenes.

I did have a few issues with Vanellope, the glitchy outcast of a "Mario Kart"-esque racer called "Sugar Rush". She's meant to be the annoying sidekick who the viewers are supposed to grow to love. The problem is that she's a bit too good at being annoying. It's not so much her demeanor or her character; it's just that some of her jokes go on for too long. This lead to her rubbing me the wrong way in her first appearance, which kept me from liking her as much as I wanted to later. To the movie's credit, though, emotional scenes revolving around her still work, and I never wanted harm to befall her or anything. I just wish they'd toned her down just a bit. I don't dislike Sarah Silverman, but she needs to be used correctly.

The clear standout of the four leads is Jane Lynch's Sergeant Calhoun. As an amalgam of Samus Aran, female Commander Shepard, and pretty much every other "strong, independent woman" character in video games, the irony lies in that she probably is better written than most of them. She has an interesting backstory which actually informs her actions as she proceeds through the story and interacts with other characters. Not to mention that she has many of the best jokes, and Jane Lynch is a pro when it comes to snappy one-liners. Many of my personal favorite scenes were the ones between her and Felix which examined their different game styles and personalities.

The story is also great. It goes by at a decent clip, though it does get a bit bogged down in the middle while Ralph is trying to help Vanellope get a kart and learn to drive. Other than that, though, this is an original and interesting story, with a few more twists and turns that I was expecting. It's also very good at getting legitimate emotion from the audience. There were a couple of moments where I was questioning one or two things, but the movie is so good at world building that I could let it slide and just allow myself to be immersed in the world of the arcade.

Speaking of the world of the movie, it is beautiful. Everything is beautifully and diversely animated. Different characters and games are done very differently, down to the way that the citizens of Ralph and Felix's game move very choppily while characters from "Hero's Duty" are animated hyper-realistically. There's so much care put into every characters and detail, especially during crowd and panoramic shots and in Game Central Station. I just wish that we'd have had the opportunity to visit more game worlds. If there's one reason I would want a sequel, that's it.

I would be remiss to end this review without mentioning the various video game cameos. As a gamer, it was a lot of fun to point out all of the references that popped up. I was impressed by how numerous, varied, and accurate they were (for the most part). I also give the movie credit for letting them occur naturally and not allowing them to bog down the movie or make it purely a game of Spot the Reference. I don't know if they would alienate anyone who doesn't play video games as intensely as I do, but I think Disney managed to strike a very good balance.

"Wreck-It Ralph" is superb. You don't need to be a gamer to get it, though it does add a bit of an extra layer to things. It's full of great characters, amazing visuals, and real emotion. It's wreck-tacular (that's the tagline on the poster, and I really couldn't think of a way to end this...)!

P.S. The short that accompanies the movie, "Paperman", is really cute. I thoroughly enjoyed its story and its interesting animation style. I sense an Oscar nomination in this short's future.

P.P.S. You can download an actual version of "Fix-It Felix, Jr." for your phone that looks and plays exactly like the 8-bit version featured in the movie. It's free and a lot of fun. Check it out if that sounds cool to you.

Underappreciated Film: "Scott Pilgrim"

I absolutely adore this movie. It's basically exactly what I want from a video game movie. However, it's not actually based on a video game. It's based on a comic book series, which is itself underappreciated.

The story follows Scott Pilgrim as he tries to win the love of Ramona Flowers. In order to do so, he must defeat her seven evil exes. The world of "Scott Pilgrim" runs on video game logic, in which it is totally okay for people to have superpowers and in which people explode into coins when they die. I love both the movie and the comic series for different reasons. The movies is hilarious, and the special effects are top-notch. The performances are great, and the music is varied and memorable. The comic, on the other hand, is more thoughtful and focuses more on the characters and their development and growth. They are both exceptional in their own ways, but I think I like the comics just a bit more. They are both still very underappreciated though. I personally think that this had to do with an odd marketing campaign for the movie combined with its relatively small target market. The comic's performance and general obscurity can simply be chalked up to generally lackluster sales for comics in general in any demographic that's not nerds and geeks like myself. It doesn't help that, in order to get the most out of the movie and the comic, you also have to have a relatively deep knowledge of classic video games. This tightens the demographic even further. It's also not really meant for older audiences. For example, I went to see this movie with my mother and my younger brother and sister. While my siblings and I enjoyed it, my mother didn't quite understand the movie. The tinge of hipster and slacker mentality also slims down the target audience. At this point, the film and comics will appeal to young hipsters, slackers, and nerds who play video games and read comics. While the movie and comics obviously appeal to people outside of this demographic, it is still usually only liked by people who fall into at least one of those categories. That's enough to keep most people away. I'd say give them a try. I love "Scott Pilgrim", and I think more people should give it a look. Maybe you'll find something of yourself among the hipstery slacker nerds.

P.S. In case anyone is wondering, I also love "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game". It's a great throwback to old-fashioned beat-em-ups, and it's totally worth the price you pay to download it, especially if you can get a group of friends together to play with you.

After seeing the Hobbit, who is your favourite dwarf?

Thorin is kind of a given, considering that he's such a huge part of the story. The friend that I went with and I had a soft spot for Ori by the end, though. He can be so derpy sometimes that it's really endearing.

State Of Mind: "Final Fantasy XII"

People who know me know that I make no secret that this might be my favorite in the "Final Fantasy" series of games. However, this seems to be among the most divisive entries for some reason. I'd like to examine why I love it when other hate it.

"Final Fantasy XII" follows the story of a rebellion attempting to put the proper princess, a young woman named Ashe, back into power during a major war between two large countries. There's a lot more to the story than that, including magical crystals (when aren't there magical crystals?), a war against the gods, and several plot twists and reveals. I never quite understood the story. It starts out simply enough, with the story being told from the perspective of street rat Vaan, who lives in the country in between the two warring ones. However, it quickly becomes tangled, as many more characters are introduced and plot elements begin piling up. You find out that this was never really Vaan's story, the bad guy isn't actually the bad guy (this actually happens several times), the war has more motives than originally thought, and something about the gods seeing the future and controlling minds. It all becomes really hard to follow, especially on a first play through.

In addition to the muddled story, the characters are also pretty forgettable. After X did such a great job of creating colorful and interesting characters, it was disappointing to see XII take a step backward in that regard. None of the characters really have any real personalities. They are all pretty much just serious, strong, goal-oriented blank slates that aren't given any defining characteristics apart from whatever goal it is that they are trying to achieve. There are two exceptions, though they are on opposite ends of the spectrum: Penelo, Vaan's childhoos friend, and Balthier, a sky pirate. Penelo, I can only assume, was supposed to be the perky young girl archetype, a role previously filled be characters like Yuffie In VII and Rikku in X. However, to match the game's atmopshere, her "perkiness" is severely toned down, so it ends up just coming off as a couple of random quips and stupid questions throughout the game. To make matters worse, she has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the game. She is there for no other reason than to give you a sixth party member. It's even worse than the also superfluous Vaan, since he at least has the excuse of avenging his soldier brother. (The original lead character was supposed to be a soldier named Basch, who, while still a major character and party member, had the focus taken away from him when it was thought that a more relatable protagonist was needed.) Penelo is, by far, my least favorite character in the game, both for her "personality" and her complete irrelevance to the plot. On the other hand, there's Balthier. In a game with so few good characters, Balthier is so memorable that it almost makes up for the general lameness of the rest of the party. He is an arrogant, but secretly caring, sky pirate who insists that he is "the leading man" of this story. He's a funny, compelling, well-designed character with an interesting backstory. Plus, in a story where half of the party is along for the ride for no adequately explained reason, he is actually pretty deeply intertwined with the matters at hand (for reasons both obvious and secret). In addition to his countless comedic scenes, he also gets some good tearjerker scenes and some show-stealing moments of heroic badassery. He is easily one of my favorite "Final Fantasy" characters of all time.

So, why do I love the "Final Fantasy" with the confusing story and forgettable characters (Balthier aside)? It's all about the world and the gameplay for me. Ivalice is enormous. You can spend all day just adventuring to all of the corners of the world and still probably miss a ton of stuff. Every corner is teeming with life, both friendly and malicious. There is a well-defined government, environment, social system, and mythos. There are tons of places to go and things to see. You can go somewhere a hundred times, and there's still a chance that you haven't seen everything that there is to see there. I spent over 100 hours on this game, and I still wasn't nearly done with everything it had to offer. Ivalice is a textbook example of building a complete and vivid world.

I may be alone in this boat, but I also love the battle system. I was wary at first, since this was the first "Final Fantasy" I had played without a clear turn-based system. I also feel as though other people hate it because it's so far removed from any previous battle system that the series has used (except maybe XI, which I never played). It definitely took some getting used to, but I ended up finding the new MMORPG-like system very deep and interesting. I loved being able to run around, see enemies on the field, and kill them as they appeared. It helped add to the world that they were trying to build, and it made it feel slightly more real when battles weren't taking place in some random dimension apparently reserved only for stabbing things in the face. Granted, I've heard some people say the opposite, saying that running away wasn't as effective as it would be in reality and that things could hit you when you were obviously far outside of their attack range. I guess those were all just covered by willing suspension of disbelief for me, that and the understanding that that was necessary in order to create a more balanced and challenging battle system. By the end of the game, I loved just running through earlier areas and killing things in one hit, racking up tons of LP as I went. One surefire way of gauging my enjoyment of an RPG is by how much I enjoy grinding in it. By that standard, XII gets a huge thumbs up from me.

So, there you have it. That's why I love one of the most divisive and detested games in the "Final Fantasy" oeuvre. Mind you, I sometimes go back and forth between this, X, and VI, but this one ends up on top more often than not. I love the world, the hunts, the Balthier, and the battle system enough to vastly outweigh any negative thoughts I may have toward this game. So, go forth, and happy hunting!

11 of the dwarves' actors from "The Hobbit" (taken at an advanced screening of the movie)