Wreck-It Ralph

Directed by Rich Moore

(PG)

***

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Like the 1980s video games that inspired it, Disney’s latest animated feature is merely light entertainment—“but fun while it lasts,” said Jody Mitori in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It even comes close to achieving its goal of appealing both to cartoon-loving kids and parents who grew up in the arcade age. John C. Reilly voices the titular character, a muscled brute who has spent his entire life inside a 1980s-style arcade game destroying things. To prove his good nature, he must win a medal, which leads him into the candy-filled game Sugar Rush, where he befriends a tomboyish drag racer played by Sarah Silverman. Even in a film of “eye-popping visuals,” the duo’s friendship provides the film’s highlight, said Michael O’Sullivan inThe Washington Post. But too many storylines and action sequences pile on, and the “needless clutter” detracts from that “kernel of genuine feeling.” Even if these characters aren’t Toy Story lovable, they’re lovable enough, said Claudia Puig in USA Today. Flaws aside, Wreck-It Ralph manages to be “a bouncy, hilarious, and heart-warming, game-trotting trip.”