Full-length animated features are either going to have to start upping their games or stop attaching far superior shorts onto the start of their theatrical runs. Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph" is cute and all, but the whimsical black-and-white romance "Paperman" that precedes the main attraction is such an effervescent, note-perfect charmer, encapsulating more genuine emotions in the span of ten minutes than the vast majority of films manage in ninety, that one almost has half a mind to get up and leave when it's over, not wanting to chance that the upcoming movie proper might spoil the spell. This is not to slight "Wreck-It Ralph," which resounds with freshness and wit when it isn't falling into the trap of the chaotic video games it is satirizing, only an observation about how creatively thriving short-form animation seems to be in recent years.
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