Wreck-It Ralph Blu-ray Review
Sometimes, Disney releases formulaic movies and sequels to those movies that it have a lot of blockbuster potential, but not much originality or artistic merit. Sometimes, like in the case of Wall*E, Disney pushes the envelope and reminds everyone why it’s an entertainment juggernaut. Wreck-It Ralph is unquestionably the latter. Easily the best animated film of 2012 (and it would have won the Oscar in the category were Pixar’s name not attached to Brave), Wreck-It Ralph is a masterpiece. A love letter to the golden age of gaming, Wreck-It Ralph combines Easter Eggs, cameos, and engaging characters in a story that is original and fresh. The crowning achievement in a string of recent releases that have included the underrated Bolt, Princess and the Frog, and Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph proves that the Walt Disney Animation Studios is back, and able to match or exceed Pixar in terms of quality.
The Wreck-It Ralph Blu-ray comes with a Blu-ray #D Disc, regular Blu-ray disc, DVD, and a Digital Copy.
Video & Audio
Audio and video are both absolutely flawless. I only watched the standard Blu-ray, but it was beyond spectacular in terms of video quality. Blacks are deep, colors pop, and clarity is exceptional. If you walk into a store today, don’t be surprised to see Wreck-It Ralph playing on all of the TVs to help sell HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and home theater systems.
The sound matches the quality of the audio, with a surprisingly rousing DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround track. There’s a lot of bass during the more “intense” (relatively speaking) moments of the film, and the pop soundtrack sounds great throughout. Overall, it’s very immersive, and there is a lot of activity across all channels throughout the film. I don’t recall audio being this dynamic at the theater, but this is really a great movie for audio.
Extras
The extras are where the wheels fall off of the Sugar Rush racers car, so to speak. With the exception of the excellent Paperman short, the Wreck-It Ralph extras are a serious letdown. The only things of substance besides this are a short making-of and the intermission scenes.
What? Really?!
C’mon Disney. You put together an incredible film that likely required a lot of collaboration with third parties about a topic in which many people have an independent interest, and this is all you could muster?!?! Where is the commentary? Where is the hour-plus long documentary describing the licensing of characters for the film?? (I’ve read several interesting interviews on this topic, so I know there are interesting stories!) Where’s the concept art??? Where’s Second Screen????
I’m not unreasonable. I’d settle for just two of these four no-brainer extras. Unfortunately, we got zero. This is really, really disappointing given that this is a film perfectly positioned to have oodles of extras given its subject, but instead we get (basically) nothing.
No matter, Wreck-It Ralph is still a must-own film for anyone who grew up on video games or loves Disney animation. Everyone else should probably just rent it and/or wait for a more definitive release. The movie itself, and the audio and video quality make it a purchase worth making for fans, but the egregiousness of not including quality extras will not soon be forgotten.
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I don’t think that lack of good extras should be a reason not to get the DVD. I would hold off on bluray because extras are what make a bluray so special. However most bluray players will play dvds so one can still buy the dvd. The Movie and Paperman make the purchase of the DVD worth it. A person should never buy a DVD for the extras. You should actually like the movie itself if you are going to buy it. If you haven’t seen it but want to you should just rent it. Same rules apply to this movie as the other ones out there.
I’d disagree with that pretty strongly. What makes BluRay special for me is the higher video and audio quality.
I’ve only watched the “extras” on ~2 movies over the years. I generally don’t care about most of it and I don’t enjoy seeing how a movie is made as that takes me out of the moment if I’m to watch the movie again.
I judge home releases (DVD or Blu-ray) by the same standard, and that’s the overall package.
With few exceptions, extras aren’t as important to me as the rest of what’s on the disc, but I still expect there to be a decent helping of extras. I do watch them, and they do matter to me.
If I were to distinguish based on Blu-ray v. DVD, I’d say it’s more important for a Blu-ray to have exceptional audio and video quality than extras, as that’s where the Blu-ray format most excels.
Plot-wise it beats Brave, but I’d give Brave the edge in visuals and cinematography. And Brave destroys Wreck-it-Ralph for the quality of the soundtrack. Those two things might have weighed in along with the Pixar name.
I enjoyed the intermission commentary! It was fun and something I’ve never seen before. I feel like it reached out to the nerd in me (not that that’s hard to do!) I got the DVD/Blu-ray Combo and it had great deleted scenes. Many of which were unfinished story boards. These had commentary and it was fun to see the evolution of the Ralph character.
Did Sarah enjoy this movie? I’m trying to convince my wife to watch it but she doesn’t think she will like it!
Sarah hasn’t seen it.
I totally agree with your assessment of the film and its loss to Brave at the Academy Awards. Wreck-It Ralph had the best story of any animated feature in 2012 (heck, in the last two years, even), and easily tops Brave (as did ParaNorman, in my opinion). The Pixar name has earned a certain cachet, but I wish the Academy voters weren’t quite so mesmerized by it.
Anyway, DVD extras or no, Wreck-It Ralph is a must-own.
I completely agree with you on the extras. I was really expecting more. Really wish commentary was included.