Another movie review from my 11-year-old, video-game-playing, Alfred-Hitchcock-admiring nephew, Jordy...

Video-game movies have a tendency to suck. They normally have a terribly written script, horrendous acting, and just are not appealing to most people. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World changed all this with its great acting, comic book elements, and just blew “Video game movies stink!” out of the water. The question was then could another movie about video games with its main story not stink?

Wreck-It Ralph says yes, with Mario Kart and Donkey Kong on top of the cake. It is like a documentary on what video games go through, except less stupid and more original.

The story is about a guy named Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly), a video game villain that is underappreciated by his fellow video game crew and goes on a quest for a medal so he can prove that he’s a good guy. However, it turns into an adventure on its own, LIKE a video game. He first goes to Hero’s Duty, a First-Person Shooter (FPS) where he questions, “When did games become so violent?” I agree. We don’t need BFG’s or Spartan Lasers. Heck, Mario only needs his feet. Anyway, in Hero’s Duty, he meets Sue Sylvester- I mean, Jane Lynch. Sorry, she just basically has Sue’s personality. She plays Sergeant Calhoun, in a Sue-riffic role. He gets a medal in it, but then accidentally enters a racing game, Sugar Rush, which is basically Mario Kart with candy! Hooray!

I’m not going to spoil anymore, but the story is good. It's also very funny, with some jokes that hardcore gamers will get (The password to a video game’s code is the contra code.) There is also a joke about a new game in the arcade, where the good guy, Fix-It Felix (voiced by Jack McBrayer), says, “Look at the high-definition on your face.” I think it’s a great line. The movie is very well-written. Little kids might not get some of the words, like glitches or code, just some stuff that makes up a game. What intrigues me about the story is that it takes a very unoriginal approach—an outcast becomes the hero—but puts it in this video game world that is so colorful (Sugar Rush) so bland (Hero’s Duty) and just plain old school (Fix-It Felix), and puts these worlds together perfectly. Only a great movie can do that. It also gets some shots of the real world, us, in the arcade. How we take advantage of the video game world and kill the video game people when they do not please us. I guess hippies were right when they said, “There’s a world in all of us.” Video Games have souls, too. Think about that the next time you shoot an alien in the face in Halo

~Jordan Muschler

89%

Okay For 7+

(Leave a comment for ideas of a review. If you have any feedback, please tell me. I love feedback! The next review is the new Frankenweenie from Tim Burton.)