Wonderful Wreck-It Ralph Weekend

There are so many things I love about living in Orlando and free stuff ranks pretty high on that list. Earlier in the month the Disney Parks Blog posted about the Wreck-It Ralph Meet-Up, available by RSVP only. Within a few short hours the spots were filled,and I was one of the lucky few who sent in my RSVP in time.

Our morning started by checking-in at the front of DisneyQuest. Everyone showed their ID to prove they had made it onto the guest list, and a colored wristband indicated our “team”. These teams served two purposes: 1) to keep track of the best scores at select DisneyQuest games and 2) to assign attendees to a specific theater when it became movie time. We also received a fun “hero” gold medal and a Wreck-It Ralph tattoo, which I will proudly wear both when I see the movie again on opening day.

After checking in we had about two hours of game time; DisneyQuest was all ours! The most popular attraction of the morning  was the game “Fix-It Felix Jr.”  This 1980’s style arcade game stars Fix-It Felix Jr. and Wreck-It Ralph and is the subject of the movie. Simple and fun, it brings back lots of memories for the children of the ’80’s even though the game did not exist until 2012. This game will have a permanent home in DisneyQuest.

My pals and I enjoyed playing skee ball, pinball, a 4 player version of Pac-Man (soooo much fun) and the DisneyQuest classic: Mighty Ducks human pinball (which I won three times in a row!) We checked out a fun Lego demo station, and spotted a few cool people dressed as Fix-It Felix! After having our fill of video games, we got our picture with the awesome Wreck-It Ralph figure, grabbed our free soda and popcorn, and walked over to the theater.

All electronic devices were banded, so I snapped one last photo of the crowd before checking the goods and heading into the theater. The awards for the top scorers were given out followed by the debut of Wreck-It Ralph as he appears in his character meet and greet form, coming soon to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We had a hard time seeing him as we were up in the balcony level, but you can bet your power-up mushroom I will be getting my picture with him when he is in the park.

The movie was preceded by the Disney animated short “Paperman”. I am so glad Pixar influenced Disney to place an animated short in front of their feature films. “Paperman” was a delight, a masterpiece even.

Now to the movie review

I am not a movie critic and I do not want to go into too many details. In fact, I will not put any spoilers in this little review. Really the most important thing I can possibly type is…

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!!

This movie is one of the funniest movies, animated or otherwise, that I have seen in a long time. It is perfect for adults and kids, but the bread and butter of this movie has to be the gamers. Anyone who has played a video game and had a blast doing so will love this movie. And children of the ’80’s will be in paradise. The little details, the little puns… they make this film delightful. The soundtrack and score fit the mood perfectly, including a few pieces by Skillex (who has a little cameo in the film too).

During the pre-movie introduction, the hosts of the meet-up shared that the director of the movie had never directed a Disney movie before and actually came from “The Simpsons” and “Futurama.” I am a big Simpsons fan, but worried that this film would be littered with pop culture references and crude jokes that would be outdated in five years (I am looking at you Dreamworks), but I was wrong for thinking this way.

This movie is an absolute must-see! I will most definitely see this movie again when it comes out on November 2nd and I highly recommend that you go see it too, it is simply wreck-tacular!