Wreck It Ralph

Seen in the theater for the first time in December 2012.

"Wreck It Ralph," is cute and heartwarming. It's entertaining enough, and is probably funny enough for a child who is not yet old enough to think about being cool. For an adult there are some smirky moments, and it doesn't lazily rely on references to old games as its sole source of appeal to an older audience. And the emotional manipulation is effective enough to make us tear up on a few occasions.

There's a nagging idea that all of the ideas in this game world aren't completely worked out, though. Like Felix's abilities to fix things seems independent of the person playing the game. Like what kind of game is that? It's like the person playing the game just watches him fix things, rather than maneuvering him. There doesn't ever seem to be a scenario where Felix fails to beat Ralph. Am I being silly? Yes, but... There's an obvious tension here with the fact that we have these programmed creations, and also third parties that manipulate them, and also they have some kind of free will as well. I'm not sure that at the end of the day this jumbled stew makes any sense.

But sure, it doesn't have to. Cause this is a nice diversion for children, and it's a nice diversion for adults too. Maybe Sarah Silverman's character seriously grates, but maybe she's also a pretty cool image for little girls to look at. And the movie has a nice little message about being nice to people, cause maybe a whole lot of problems would have been solved in this if  these characters had just been nicer to each other. Maybe that's pabulum. It probably is. And maybe adults should be shooting for something higher than mild diversion. I'm starting to think so. I'm starting to think it's way too easy to settle for diversion, and our culture is suffering for it. And on the one hand, I know I'm just being a cranky old man and that cranky old men always have been and always will be full of shit. But on the other hand, I really am cranky and I really am starting to wonder... Grade B.