WRECK-IT RALPH (2012)

WRECK-IT RALPH. Rich Moore, dir. Phil Johnston et al., script. USA: Walt Disney Animation Studios (prod.) / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (US dist.) 2012. See IMDb entry for complex and significant technical credits.

Let's call it a cyberfantasy, one IMDb summarizes, "A video game villain" — property damage only; Ralph doesn't kill or maim — "wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfill his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives." The primary world of the story is the cyberspace/virtual worlds inside arcade games, with the external world, our everyday world, secondary and limited to one small, old-fashioned arcade. Cyberspace here is very different from that of TRON or a William Gibson novel, and RALPH is a highly complex and nuanced exercise in narrative tone varied through visuals and likely to be experienced in very different ways by different demographics. For older gamers, the tone may be nostalgic and even elegiac; in more cynical moods, one can view the film as gentle satire of a Disneyfied cyberspace and now-primitive arcade games. For a number of viewers RALPH will be an exercise in ironic intertextuality, with references to TRON, the MATRIX series, STARSHIP TROOPERS, and other films and games based on films (and perhaps films based on games — and, of course, just to old arcade games). Erlich doesn't know what children will make of this movie.

5. DRAMA, RDE, 06/XI/12