Wreck-It Ralph: A Review of Sorts

My three youngest children went with their uncle Dave and their younger cousins to see "Wreck-It Ralph" on Wednesday and came home praising it and saying how much they loved it. Adam, 16, said I had to go see it and that I would just love it. Ben, 13, said that I would cry at the end. To which Adam said, "Well, that's not saying much; she cries at every movie." (Which is almost true.)They all enjoyed it, including Katie, 10, who said it was hilarious and they told us that the rest of us should go see it in theater for sure. So we did. Kriss and our oldest, Jonah, 17, went tonight. 

The movie begins strong, with the bad guys in a support group meeting, and there are some funny lines and good sight gags. When Ralph leaves his game and begins an adventure, I thought we would see what happened as he moved in and out of lots of games. Unfortunately, Ralph (and the movie) gets stuck in a game called "Sugar Rush" where adorable little girl avatars race around a "Candyland"-esque world. The story stalls badly (no pun intended) and I quickly lost interest. The little girl that Ralph gets entagled with (she steals his medal, he wants it back... yawn...) is cute, but obnoxious and their sometimes potty-humor-laced banter isn't as funny to me as it would be to a 10-12 year old kid.