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Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Monday, November 05, 2012

Wreck-It Good

“I’m bad, and that’s good. I’ll never be good, and that’s not bad. There’s no one I’d rather be than me.” - Wreck-It-Ralph

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Wreck-It-Ralph is a Disney movie, but ever since the Pixar folks were made in charge of all Disney animation, this latest has all the trademarks of great Pixar films. It has unexpected depth that will engage adults as it engages the kids with its cute characters and colorful world.

It’s amazing how the most colorful of media (computer games) actually contains the most black-and-white of characters (good versus bad). Wreck-It-Ralph is about a bad guy who wants to be good, and it’s an anti-hero movie flipped over its head. What makes it more fascinating is that Ralph purposely wants to be good. And it’s a breath of fresh cinematic air when he realizes that the road to good intentions can be littered with actions that are more than 50 shades of gray.

One of my main pet peeves with movies these days are their predictability, but Wreck-It-Ralph is that rare Hollywood movie that surprised and amazed me. It even managed to blindside me with the identity of the main antagonist. It shows how characters are not entirely all good or all bad, and that “good” and “bad” may not necessarily be traits but just roles that one can play. For an animation movie that’s usually aimed at kids, that’s not bad.

4 comments:

Mac Callister said...

Dahil idol kita at maganda review mo dito aabangan ko tong movie na to haha

rudeboy said...

Shades of Monsters, Inc., and if the initial character designs for Ralph were anything to go by, the creators certainly had that Sully-Boo dynamic in mind.

I was going to bitch about the lack of more classic video game characters interacting with Ralph, Felix, and Vannellope. Then I realized that, while Disney has pockets deep enough to meet any licensing ransoms, the cameos of Sangief, Bowser, et al were simply that- cameos.

The story is about Ralph and his character arc, and in that, I thought Wreck-It Ralph had high scores.

So looking forward to Wreck-It Ralph II: Wreck Harder.

joelmcvie said...

@RUDEBOY: "Wreck-It Ralph: Wreck Harder" will be voiced by Bruce Willis. Although I must admit the first thing that came to my mind was a Randy Blue venture into animation.

citybuoy said...

Looks interesting. I wish more movies were written this way.