After six long years, we finally now have a sequel to probably what is to me one of the five best animated films of the decade, 2012’s “Wreck-It Ralph”, an idea and premise so original where it feels relatable and realistic to it’s main character, Ralph (John C. Reilly), that it became my favorite film that year. Now, it is time for both Ralph and Vanellope to travel into the internet for the sequel coming out this week, “Ralph Breaks the Internet”. This has been my most anticipated film of the entire year since the first movie really changed the way I perceive of cinema.
After Ralph’s destructive revenge of Turbo from the first film, he and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) are friends hanging out at Tapper’s bar and living at his home arcade game, “Fix-It-Felix, Jr.”. When Ralph watches Vanellope race in her game, “Sugar Rush”, she finds somewhat of a hidden road where in full effect, the main controller of the game has been broken. We see Vanellope in depression due to the incident, but once in a blue moon, Ralph has an idea that they can buy a new Sugar Rush controller on EBay in the newly installed Wi-Fi router at Game Central Station. Vanellope tends to get very excited about this situation after Ralph telling her.
Despite Ralph and Vanellope having to pay on EBay, they eventually win the bid for the Sugar Rush controller at the internet after all. Meanwhile at the internet, a click-bait pop-ad user named Spamley (Bill Hader) along with them choose to travel to an online, dark racing game called “Slaughter Race” to steal a valuable car by Shank (Gal Gadot), which to them might go for a lot of money. Therefore, that gives Vanellope a very positive interest of Slaughter Race unfortunately making Ralph very isolated from her as well as thinking that game can really bore her.
If you wish to hear more of the story, there is a lot of detail to this film. I would for sure recommend to watch the rest of film (obviously with no spoilers) to find out.
Although not as brilliant as the first film, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is going to be a film that is not going to be ranked among the best of this year like “Searching”, “The Hate U Give”, “Boy Erased”, and Steve McQueen’s “Widows”. As a massive, huge fan of the first film however, this film is absolutely fantastic, funny, and smart in so many levels when it comes to its messaging about the internet and how viruses can affect your personal internet experience.
There are some nitpicks I have with this film as usual. With this film making to be not as good as Disney Animation Studios previous efforts from 2010 to 2016 (Tangled, Winnie the Pooh, Wreck-It Ralph, Moana, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia), there are some really underwhelming character animation compared to the first where Ralph’s smiling looks upgraded and Vanellope at times might look a little foggy. The character animation in the first looked colorful, bright, and zany where it looks decent here. I understand that 2018 is changing in the looks of cinema, but definitely not for the character animation in “Ralph Breaks the Internet.”
Now, remember Fix-It-Felix and Sergeant Calhoun in the first film and how they got married at the end? I really wish they had more of an involvement here because they were dealing with many family issues (with the Nicelanders and the Sugar Rush people) during the beginning. They are also very vital people when it comes to the series too so that can be more of a problem.
However, that does not mean the emotional relationship between Ralph and Vanellope is still there, the humor is alive and stays its welcome, and the internet feels both realistic and believable.
John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman are once again perfect together as both Ralph and Vanellope respectively. Like it’s predecessor, they still have a consistent sense of friendship in themselves where they care for one another. Between the two characters, there seems to be a theme of isolation for them because of Vanellope’s perspective of “Slaughter Race” making Ralph very worried.
Don’t worry, folks. There is also one great musical number sung by Vanellope herself about “Slaughter Race” called “A Place Called Slaughter Race”. It fits the honest tone of Vanellope’s emotions so well as well as incorporating humor into it.
Speaking of “Slaughter Race”, Gal Gadot is perfect as the female driver Shank where she also has a caring friendship and bond with Vanellope. Her looks and characteristics represent the tone of a very PG-13-alike racing game like anyone would see in any of “The Fast and the Furious” films. (Fun fact: Gal Gadot was in The Fast and Furious franchise from 2009 to 2015)
Probably my favorite and the best aspect in this film is the way it perceives the internet itself. That would involve the way people comment on videos, how the dark web is portrayed as a villain, and especially how the website EBay.com is executed (An example of this is that there is a character named EBoy for humorous). The internet in this film feels realistic whenever something just reactive happens like if someone is giving likes to a YouTube video, the video gets popular immediately.
Ralph Breaks the Internet is not just a fantastic sequel despite not being as amazing as the first, but it sets up as a disclaimer that the internet can perceive itself as sensitive and dangerous. It is kind of interesting how both films deal with different and meaningful messages where the first dealt with being an anti-villain and the second dealing with many internet scenarios. Just with only mentioning some flaws doesn’t mean Walt Disney Animation Studios is still the best in the business when it comes to animation.
Grade: 8.5/10
