As regular TG readers know, we love the good old days of gaming, and have a lot of nostalgia for the times of the coin operated machines, as well as ancient home consoles like Atari and Coleco.
Now the animated family film Wreck It Ralph is upon us this weekend, and not only are the reviews stellar, but the box office pundits are predicting it’s going to have a huge weekend in spite of Hurricane Sandy.
One review dubbed Wreck It Ralph the video game version of Roger Rabbit, which should be enough to sell the film right there.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ralph currently has an 83% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. You clearly don’t have to be an old-school gamer, or even a gamer, to enjoy Ralph, but for many of us it sure won’t hurt. Meanwhile, Examiner.com wrote, “Video gamers and / or arcade dwellers from the ‘80’s and ‘90s are going to eat this right up.”
And as far as the Roger Rabbit angle, Entertainment Weekly noted: “There are more videogame cameos and winks than you can hake a Wiimote at…It doesn’t quite carry the heft of Toy Story, but there’s a lot of heart packed into these zeroes and ones.” There is indeed a Pixar connection with John Lassater executive producing, and Ralph also has a huge budget to earn back, $165 million.
Even thought that’s not chump change, reports in the Hollywood press feel that with theaters reopening after Sandy, people will come out to see the film in droves.
Variety also headlined its report that Ralph “should reanimate the box office.” Prediction for the weekend? It will “easily climb to the top of the domestic box office, but the damage Disney’s 3D toon does will depend greatly on how fast crews can fix up power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy.”
The Hollywood Reporter also confirmed that “moviegoing surged overall in New York City on Wednesday as people, off work and out of school, looked for something to do and flocked to theaters.” We often turn to movies in times of trouble, and plunging into the video game world of Wreck It Ralph could indeed be a wonderful journey to take this weekend.
