“Wreck-It Ralph” had the biggest box office opening for a non-Pixar Disney film in the company’s history and this movie is worth the money to go see in theaters.

WIR follows Ralph, voiced by John C. Reilly, who is the bad guy in his video game, Fix-It Felix. In a “Toy Story”-esque way, the movie shows the lives of video game characters once the arcade is closed for the day. Game characters can travel through the power cords of their game to Grand Central Station, a large surge protector. 

I am a sucker for anything 8-bit, so this movie had me before it even began with pixilated versions of the Disney logo and Steamboat Willie. After that, we learn that Ralph’s life is no picnic.

In the video game, Ralph lives in a tree stump, but his stump gets relocated to the dump so an apartment building can be put up. In Donkey Kong fashion, Ralph gets angry and wrecks the building and Fix-It Felix, voiced by Jack McBrayer, has to go fix it.

The game has been in operation for 30 years when Ralph goes to a “bad-anon” support group for video game villains. He explains that he is tired of being the bad guy.

Ralph decides to game jump to Hero’s Duty to win a medal to show he is not a bad guy. Of course, his plan goes awry and he ends up threatening the permanent shutting down of his game as well as others in the arcade.

During his journey he meets Sergeant Calhoun, voiced by Jane Lynch. She is tough-as-nails and will stop at nothing to keep the player in the arcade safe from a Cy-bug invasion because she is “programmed with the most tragic back-story.”

He also meets Vanellope von Schweetz, voiced by Sarah Silverman, who is known as the glitch, but  claims she just suffers from “pixelexia.”     

The plot was incredibly inventive with a twist I did not see coming. But aside from the humorous and endearing storyline, the graphics and the references make it an A+ movie.

Many recognizable faces from games like Pac-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, Burger Time, Q-Bert and Street Fighter show up in the background of the movie. The video game Tapper sets the scene of the bar where characters go to unwind. There are even audio references to other games and movies.

I loved the whole movie and stayed to enjoy all the art that was put into the closing credits and found a lovely Easter egg at the very end that made it worth staying.

I would like to give a shout-out to the movie’s website. A lot of effort went into it and it is set up like a video game. I spent a few hours on it playing games, collecting points and unlocking new information. I even got the Fix-It Felix phone app, and it is a game I cannot stop playing.

“Wreck-It Ralph” is great for kids of all ages (yes, even big kids who have their own kids). No matter if you love video games or not, this movie is for everyone.