Now Playing: Wreck-It Ralph

In a fun bit of nostalgia, we took in Wreck-It Ralph this weekend. I was totally sold by the trailer and couldn’t think of better people to watch it with than fellow old-school gamers (LilBro and Jadek). It was a lovely bit of fluff, complete with wisecracks and morals. Voice acting talents were good; especially loved Sarah Silverman’s Vanellope von Schweets. I watched it in 3D – you don’t need to, it rarely used any of the mind trickery to make it worth and extra three bucks. Animation was up to the usual Disney snuff – no complaints there. Scripting was equally clever, with tonnes of references, self-deprecating humour, and great kid/adult humour.

I don’t know if they were setting up for a sequel (or franchise, even), but there were SO many arcade references that were missed (e.g., Area 51, street fighter, frogger…) and the ones they did have were almost half-done (Bowser, but no Mario?). The other thing was the disguising of actual games – the titular game is clearly a riff off Donkey Kong and Sugar Rush stood in for Mario Kart (complete with rainbow road!)…why? And they’ll need to make a PC/console version, because I really missed Wolfenstein, Duck Hunt, and Contra.

If you have fond memories of “Nintendo thumb”, this is definitely worth a rental. 3 out of 5 stars.