This is a cool movie that came out last year. The whole family really enjoyed it 😀 Here is a synopsis [SPOILERS THROUGHOUT!] accompanied by pictures I took while the movie was playing.
The setting is a video game arcade.
There are multiple games, all connected to a single power strip. When the arcade closes, the characters can visit each other’s games and gather together, by traveling through the power cords and into the power strip. But if they die outside their game, they don’t regenerate and can never come back. Generally, characters stay in their games during business hours so as to avoid any accidents. If a game is unplugged, the residents become homeless and have no choice but to live in the power strip.
Everything is made of “code,” which is like the “DNA” of the characters.
Whatever’s programmed is what they are supposed to do in their game. However, after the arcade closes, they can do what they want, within the limits of their code. One instance is spoken of, of a malicious character called Turbo, who got jealous when his game became unpopular and went and infiltrated other games like a virus.
The titular character, Wreck-It Ralph, is the Bad Guy of his game: he wrecks buildings and Fix-It Felix (the Good Guy) fixes them. Ralph is an outcast and gets tired of it. After accidentally wrecking a party…
…he heads off to win a medal and earn the respect of the others in his game. But when the arcade opens, the gamers notice Ralph isn’t there and think the game is broken, leading Felix, a kind-hearted guy, to go look for him so the game won’t be unplugged and the residents of the game won’t be made homeless.
Ralph goes to “Hero’s Duty,” an army game where the objective is to fight cybugs and win medals. Here he is able to get a medal.
But he accidentally wakes up a cybug and while fighting, they both end up in a candy-themed racing game called “Sugar Rush.”
A tough lady sergeant, Sgt. Calhoun, goes to find and get rid of the cybug before it multiplies and destroys the Sugar Rush game.
She and Felix (looking for Ralph) start searching Sugar Rush together.
Ralph sees the cybug sink in the Taffy Swamp…
…and meets a little wanna-be racer who is pretty much an outcast in the game and is known as Vanellope von Schweetz.
They get off to a rough start when she steals his medal…
…and uses it for her entry fee into the daily race that happens after the arcade’s business hours and determines who will show up in the roster for the next day’s gaming.
However, when the other racers break her car and when Ralph is given a less-than-warm welcome by King Candy, the two team up. Ralph will help Vanellope make another car so she can win the race and get his medal back for him (which she will receive as a prize). Then he can go back to his game with it and she can be a racer in her game. Happy all around! 😉
So they make a car in the Factory…
…and Ralph teaches her how to drive.
The two are becoming best of friends…
…when sobering news comes. King Candy tells Ralph that Vanellope is a Glitch (she occasionally freezes and pixellates, and her picture jumps). If she wins the race, shows up in the roster, is picked by a player, and is then observed “glitching,” the game will be thought to be broken and will be unplugged, leaving the residents homeless. Only, as a Glitch, Vanellope won’t be able to even leave the game and when it’s unplugged, she’ll die. So, he explains, it would be best for her and everyone if she didn’t race.
Ralph is stunned and saddened and, as her friend, decides to prevent this by not letting her race. He wrecks the car, and Vanellope is devastated.
Then the story takes another twist. Ralph learns from King Candy’s assistant that the King himself tampered with Vanellope’s code and made her a Glitch.
Furthermore, if Vanellope crosses the race’s finish line, “the game gets reset and she won’t be a Glitch anymore.”
Ralph gets Felix to fix Vanellope’s car and she enters the race along with the others.
Things are complicated when the cybug, which Calhoun discovers has multiplied…
…attacks Sugar Rush together with its countless offspring.
And Vanellope catches up to King Candy, who attacks her! He is then revealed as Turbo, the virus who escaped his game and assumed control of Sugar Rush under another form.
Vanellope escapes from Turbo by glitching and Ralph explodes a volcano that draws all the cybugs and King Candy to its light and destroys them.
As soon as Vanellope crosses the finish line, the game does indeed reset and she is transformed back into the princess she was created as.
The other characters’ memories are restored and they celebrate their rightful ruler.
Still friends, Ralph and Vanellope part to play their parts in their games.
And Fix-It Felix and Sgt. Calhoun get married.
And now Ralph is accepted and appreciated by the others in his game.
Starting out rejected, both Ralph and Vanellope end up appreciated and understood as important parts of their games. 😀
There’s no one I’d rather be than me.
To finish, here are more pictures of Sugar Rush, a most delicious-looking place indeed!
