Bastard1
Since: Nov, 2010
01/26/2016 00:00:00
The whole Topple-It Thibodeaux running gag bit seems extremely familiar somehow.
kyun
Since: Dec, 2010
01/26/2016 00:00:00
.... It took me a while to figure out why you didn't use his real name.
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Decidedly 'Meh'
Wreck-It Ralph is by no means a bad movie, but even without the year-long hype train it took to arrive, it really wasn't all that great.
The main appeal to Smash-It Steve is VIDEO GAMES. Every advert, trailer and poster was packed full of cameos, references, even the odd Easter Egg. In fact, they were so packed that they accidentally used up all of the material from the movie. With the exception of a two second Sonic the Hedgehog cameo, and a reference to Mario, who doesn't appear. There were posters that advertised characters who didn't even have any lines.
That's not to say the main characters are great either. Crush-It Craig is a bad guy, but he wants to be a good guy. As character motivation goes, it's... alright? But nothing remotely special. And that's another thing - sorry for making a comparison that everyone and their mother has already made - in Toy Story, the plot depends on toys coming to life when people aren't looking; a thought every child who owns toys has already considered by the age of 5. But with video games, the plot just doesn't make sense. Whack-It Warren wasn't programmed to secretly want to be a good guy. At one point he yells 'I love my Mom!' but... he doesn't have parents! Does he? Are they programmed into his game? How does that work?
You might justifiably think I'm looking too far into this, but my problem is that the movie does this too. There are plot points including glitches and hacking and viruses and rewriting code, all things that constantly remind us that Felix, Vanellope, Calhoun and Bash-It Benji are just lines of numbers. We're told Calhoun is programmed with a tragic backstory, but at the end of the film, she gets married. Isn't her story just going to reset the next time her game gets played?
The movie isn't all bad - the voice-acting is great, especially Jack McBrayer as the good-natured Fix-it Felix, and even though the second half of the movie runs out of material on video games and switches to jokes about sweets, they're mostly funny. Overall, I don't blame the hype entirely for Mangle-It Melvin not being particularly memorable or interesting, but I chuckle when I see people who are upset that it didn't win an Oscar. Worth watching, but not great.
Still light years ahead of Pixels though.