Dan and I spent this rainy Saturday morning catching the cheap and early showing of Wreck It Ralph at AMC. Originally, we had wantedto make sure to see it at Disney's El Capitan Theater, but due to our new push to save money, sacrifices had to be made. This time, it was sacrificing playing Name-That-Tune with the organist pre- show and a live stage spectacular. Sigh.

Wreck It Ralph was a home-run. It's funny, clever and heartwarming. It has both a strong story and solid character development. The bond between Ralph and Vanellope reminded me of Pixar's Up and had a sweet ending.

I loved the fantasy world of the story and the way in which the characters from the various games interacted. Disney really has a vast array of ways in which they can utilize the characters and themes of this movie with regard to merchandising, theme park promotion and future movies. It's a great brand. I think that it must have been so much fun to have been part of the development of this movie, coming up with ideas for the games and characters. This movie had so much room for creativity and what's more, everything created for the movie wove in perfectly with existing arcade brands that we all know. It was so well done.

During the movie, I was driven nuts by the voice of the Candy King. It sounded just like the voice of long dead, Ed Wynn (voice of Disney's Mad Hatter). During the credits, I was surprised to find out that it was actor Alan Tudyk, who played Wash on one of my favorite series, Firefly.

I thought that the opening scene where Ralph is at a Bad-Anon meeting, was not as funny as it should have been, because the surprise and creativity was undercut by last year's Pixar short, Short Fry. The concept was so similar to the one in Short Fry, but Short Fry had better comedic writing. The scene was vital to the illustrate Ralph's motivation and frame of mind, but it's unfortunate that it was so similar to the Pixar short.

It's time to end this review and go play a game on our very own vintage Pac-Man machine!