Watched: Wreck-it Ralph
Observations:
- Anyone notice that there’s a massive tonal shift about 40 minutes into this? It’s a good one - if we were still getting cheeky nods to other video games during the emotional climax, it would have been shitty - but it’s really noticeable.
- The casting in this was fantastic. John C. Reilly has the everyman thing down by now (despite looking like no other man on the planet), Jane Lynch is brilliant and plays every single G-rated pun straight (“like fun you are”, honestly), Sarah Silverman manages to be like a more human version of the kid from Despicable Me really well (less of a surprise given that I actually like Silverman; but that’s an argument for another day), and Jack McBrayer’s great.
- The one thing that made this feel really distinct from a Pixar movie (aside from the incessant branding - on the one hand, a world made of candy is cute, but lingering shots of a Subway soda cup aren’t) is the music. Some of it was great (AKB48 in the closing credits, Skrillex as the soundtrack to war) and some of it less so (I couldn’t really get on board with Shut Up And Drive as the background music for a training montage), but it definitely kept things exciting. I just worry that it might seem a little dated in a decade (animation style aside, Toy Story really doesn’t).
- I honestly thought this film wasn’t going to make me cry, and then it sucker-punched me for the last fifteen minutes, over and over again. Prepare to get your shit wrecked.
- Stick around until the end of the credits.