Wreck-It-Ralph John C. Reilly

Voiced by John C. Reilly, Wreck-It Ralph is the baddie from an 8-bit video arcade game called Fix-It Felix, Jr. Ralph’s desire to be viewed as a “good guy” starts a chain of events that threaten the virtual world inhabited by all of the film’s characters, including gaming icons both real (Q*bert, Pac-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog) and invented. The animation and visual design in Rich Moore’s film are as stunning as one would expect from a major studio. The Disney film, though, belongs to Reilly, who introduces a level of sincerity and emotional complexity usually absent in most Hollywood-produced animation. His opening monologue (delivered, we discover, to a support group for game villains) reveals a reflective nature at odds with his outwardly destructive game persona. While the themes are simplistic and there’s an abundance of scatological humor, the world of the film and its characters deliver so much fun that many adults will be drawn in along with the intended younger audience.