Wreck-It Ralph

What does being a “bad guy” mean? What if it’s in your job description? What if your job, specifically, is to do necessary things people won’t like – like foreclose homes, arrest people, collect taxes, etc. Does that make you a bad person? What if it does? What then? Can you change? What if you can’t?

Ah, the existential questions plaguing a 2D world.

Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) is a video game villain from a frogotten era of limited color and defintion. Every time a quarter is invested, the huge-fisted ape-like Pixelator Ralph destroys building after building while his angelic counterpart, Felix, cleans up the mess at the bidding of the investor. And after 30 years, Wreck-It Ralph has finally had enough. There’s a hard message here about destiny. His name and job title both include “Wreck-It.” There aren’t even quotes in his name. How screwed is that? What if my given middle name were “Drug-Dealer”? Doesn’t that by itself kinda shape your destiny as a villain?

We meet Ralph monologuing in his very first video game villain support group meeting. A colleague sympathizes: “You’re ‘bad guy’; this does not make you bad guy.” The thought here that we’re more than our roles or our jobs is very important. I think Disney does a great service in encouraging us to view Pac-Man and Q-bert [read: ourselves] as entities that feel and have concerns other than those in the venues in which we see them. When Ralph returns across the surge protector doubling as Grand Central Station, he finds the residents of his game have honored its namesake, Fix-It Felix (Jack McBrayer). Ralph is left to his open-air stump and brick-pile blanket.

There’s a true sadness about Ralph not being invited to the anniversary party where he arguably deserves guest-of-honor rights. One does have to wonder, however, how Ralph could have gone 30 years without forming a single friendship in his own game. Perhaps the citizens only see him as an ogre and nothing more. The animation here is truly clever. From human perspective, Ralph & co. are 2D. Inside the electronic grid, everybody is 3D, but the denizens of the building have deliberately stuttered, halting movements – they, quite clearly, aren’t as well defined as Ralph and Felix. After Ralph ruins the anniversary party, he takes off to find fortune elsewhere. The residents of the Fix-It high-rises give him a “don’t let the door hit you …” send off. Ah. Oh, my poor animated citizens, does conflict mean nothing to you? In the words of ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic:

I know Darth Vader’s really got you annoyed
But remember if you kill him then you’ll be unemployed

Ralph’s search for self lands him in Sugar Rush, a cart racing video game so saturated with candy coated coloring, I felt like I needed to see a dentist afterwards. Ralph reluctantly befriends Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), a walking glitch who dreams of ruining the big race. He’s an ogre, she’s a brat. They’re detectives. You simply won’t believe how -how do I say this? – how human this relationship between two-dimensional immature fictional relics can be.

And that’s the point, isn’t it? Aren’t we all two-dimensional immature fictional relics just looking for a little companionship? Well, no. But it was easy for me to sympathize with Ralph — and somehow fitting that he is the video game villain, not just because it makes his story more poignant (the bad guy with good in him), but because in a video game, especially one (supposedly) straight from the Atari/Nofriendo 80s, the good guy is the one the quarter jockey manipulates. Theoretically, the bad guy is an independent contractor, not a puppet. Donkey Kong doesn’t have to throw barrels down the construction girders, he does so by choice. The game is more fun that way, no?

There is value to villainy and while not all value is villainy, some villains have developed voluminous value. Or something like that. I’m not as clever as this story.

A gamer doomed to a rock pile
Greeted as one would a reptile
He decided to jump
Still tethered to his dump
If you can’t change your fate, at least smile

Rated PG, 101 Minutes
D: Rich Moore
W: Jennifer Lee, Rich Moore, Phil Johnston and Jim Reardon
Genre: A cartoon shows me the true error of my ways
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Donkey Kong
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: “Super” Mario, that jerk