Wreck-It Ralph is Disney Animation Studio’s second golden release after Tangled — and it is as heartfelt, visually boisterous and unpretentious as perhaps any of Pixar’s films.

Ralph’s (John C. Reilly) name is ‘Wreck-It’ for the simple reason that his job is to wreck things. Ralph is the central villain of an eight-bit arcade game called Fix-It Felix Jr.

In the Donkey Kong-like game, Ralph wrecks down the building of the Nicelanders with his big hulking arms, and Felix Jr (Jack McBrayer), armed with a magical hammer that can fix anything, fixes the damage. When Felix gets to the top, Ralph is thrown from the building into the dumps. Now three decades later of living as a permanent bad guy day after day, Ralph questions his existence.

Think of Ralph’s world in Toy Story’s light. After “work” hours, when the arcade closes down, the games and characters leave for home. All the games in the arcades are connected through power circuits to a Grand Game Central, which works as a game-world subway, complete with a central station. A character can intermingle between each other’s game world, but there is catch: if a character dies while visiting another game, he’s gone for good.

When we meet Ralph, he has just joined a support group of like-minded villains from other games (look out for classic game baddies in that particular scene). And he wants more than a junkyard to call home — and most importantly to stop being treated as a villain all the time.

After a confrontation with the Nicelanders, Ralph goes on a quest to prove himself a hero.

Director Rich Moore who also wrote the story with Jim Reardon and Phil Johnston (the screenplay is by Johnston and Jennifer Lee), bring charming plot devices and characters and uses them all to the fullest to make this lumbering giants’ tale as likeable as Toy Story — and that’s something.

Wreck-It Ralph is rated- PG. It is the second most enjoyable CG film from Disney, and it’s going to give Pixar a run for its money come Oscar time. — Farheen Jawaid