Spend too much time on the Internet, and everything that makes it so breathtaking on first blush—impossible connections over infinite space, the havens for likeminded folks, the sheer accessibility of information and materials—can be twisted to fit nefarious purposes. It’s a yin-yang between the promising and the perverse; you can’t have the likes without the comments.
Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet engages with this ambivalence about the Internet in ways that are smart but not surprising: Whereas Wreck-It Ralph was about struggling against the limited constraints of an arcade game to be good, its brand-savvy sequel recognizes that there are boundless opportunities to be our worst selves online.
Read on for our non-spoiler review.
Six years after Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) embraced what made him bad in order to become good, he and best friend Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) carry on a pretty idyllic life in Litwak’s Arcade: By day he’s the villain of Fix-It Felix Jr. while she’s the top racer in Sugar Rush, then after work they drink root beers at Tapper’s and watch the sun rise in Game Central Station before starting the day all over again. Ralph is content with this state of affairs, but Vanellope has begun to grow bored with her life—not just as the princess and winner of Sugar Rush, but with the game itself. She’s ridden every track infinitesimal times; she knows every power-up, every obstacle.
Ralph is unsettled by Vanellope’s yearning to explore the world beyond her game, despite how it mirrors his own ennui from the first film. Yet he gamely tries to help her expand her horizons, only for a domino-effect series of events to lead them to search out the newest port in Game Central Station: WIFI, which leads them to the mythical Internet and the solution for saving Sugar Rush.
Of course, once these video game characters make it to the World Wide Web, they could be forgiven for getting a little distracted. The Internet is animated as the kind of bustling, dazzlingly bright, cyberpunky kind of space that anyone who grew up on ReBoot or its ilk always envisioned; though in this case the “Users” aren’t omnipotent deities, but rather cube-headed avatars passively whisked away by pop-up ads or any other cyber whim. The real power belongs not to the Internet’s visitors, but to its inhabitants, folks like Ralph and Vanellope: the Ask Jeeves lookalike Knowsmore (Alan Tudyk), the hustler Spamley (Bill Hader), and the crew of the gritty MMO Slaughter Race.
This parody game is Grand Theft Auto turned up to 11, with great white sharks bursting out of sewers on breakneck car races. It’s smog-filled, pest-infested, fires-at-every-turn, the opposite of Sugar Rush—and Vanellope loves it. It’s got the unpredictability this glitchy princess has been craving, and real stakes beyond crossing the finish line. Then there’s Shank (Gal Gadot), the cool, leather-clad star of the game, who recognizes the potential in Vanellope.
Shank is everything Ralph is not: confident, graceful, encouraging of Vanellope exploring her options. Despite the fact that they come from two different games, Ralph can see him and Vanellope only as a pair, as the welded halves of a best-friends necklace. His fervent desire to keep their friendship intact, and to return Vanellope to Sugar Rush, propels them through the Internet, to the realm of clickbait and viral videos in the form of BuzzzTube (standing in for YouTube, despite the latter getting a brief shout-out later) and algorithm Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), who teaches Ralph how to harness his nostalgic cultural capital for the likes.
I worried that I would be more disturbed by all of the nakedly obvious branding crossovers in Ralph Breaks the Internet’s vision of the Net, but most of it felt oddly matter-of-fact. Of course Amazon is a mothership; eBay’s aisles of simultaneous live auctions brings to mind Costco, or IKEA; I laughed out loud at Instagram presented as an art gallery. Even the place where Disney could have been the most indulgent, the Oh My Disney brand fansite made to look like Disneyland, was smartly utilized.
Like how Wreck-It Ralph charmed Gen X-ers and Millennials with its nostalgic arcade villains support group, Ralph Breaks the Internet is best when it riffs on a similar crop of recognizable archetypes—those oft-remixed Disney princesses, of course. Though the teasers give away a lot of the fun of Vanellope falling in with Pocahontas, Ariel, Elsa, et al, the movie builds on this mashup in sly ways. Kids will take away the message that a princess can enjoy athleisure as much as a gown, can excel at gritty racing games just as well as sugary-sweet ones; and there’s a delightfully subversive Alan Menken number the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2007’s Enchanted.
Unfortunately, most princess narratives, as Vanellope’s gaggle of new buddies lampshade, also have a big strong man trying to save the girl… and that’s where Ralph Breaks the Internet gets difficult to watch. Our villain-turned-good-guy becomes the quintessential white knight, so spurred on by his conviction that he knows what’s best for his friend that he forgets about her wants entirely. The fact that Ralph Breaks the Internet at one point becomes a movie about an insecure guy stopping a girl from enjoying herself online is downright scary—mostly in how not surprising it is.
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Not that that’s the whole story, but it is a disquieting moment on the way to a thoughtful, uplifting ending more in line with the first film. Like the Web itself, while there are glimpses of the dark underbelly that adults will catch, kids will nonetheless be delighted, and even probably personally invested, in the familiar logos and archetypes of the digital arena in which they are growing up.
Just as Mulan implores the confused Vanellope to seek out a special body of water in which to reflect upon what she really wants, so the Internet becomes a mirror for our greatest desires and our most damning foibles. Ralph Breaks the Internet lacks the heroic self-discovery of the original and instead presents more of the gritty reality of finding your place in the world, whether that’s with the people you’ve always known or with those you never would have found without that wireless connection. While not as magical as Wreck-It Ralph, it expands the universe in a satisfying way.
Now Natalie Zutter wants Ariel’s “Gizmos&Whooz-Its&Whats-Its&Snarfblats&Dinglehopper” T-shirt. (You listening, Her Universe?) Talk Internet culture with her on Twitter!
Great review.
A really quick note: Infinitesimal means an extremely small amount, not a large one.
I enjoyed it, but… not as much as I thought I would. For a couple reasons.
First, the film committed one of the worst narrative sins there is: it made a story it didn’t tell more interesting than the one it did tell. Be honest: you can’t say you didn’t hope, at least a few times, that it would cut over to see what was going on with the Felix and Calhoun storyline. Calhoun was the most interesting character in the first movie, absolutely stealing every scene she was in, and in this one… nada. They throw her into a situation that she and Felix are both completely unprepared for and temperamentally unsuited to, and I wanted to see the fireworks! And I didn’t get any! That made me a sad panda.
Too much of it felt like the first movie even though they were clearly trying hard to do something that wasn’t like the first movie. Instead of searching for a ridiculously-hard-to-obtain medal, they go out searching for a ridiculously-hard-to-obtain steering wheel. Instead of the ridiculously hardcore FPS with the tough female protagonist who befriends our characters, we end up in a ridiculously hardcore racing game with a tough (but less interesting than Calhoun!) female protagonist who befriends our characters. Instead of fighting a massive swarm of virus-like bugs at the climax… well, that’s getting into spoiler territory when this is supposed to be a spoiler-free review. But since you mentioned Reboot, I’ll just say that I immediately called what was going to happen at the end, and was sad that no Power Rangers (another Disney property, at least for a time) showed up to deal with it.
(And speaking of Calhoun, she was responsible for two of the most memorable pieces of the first movie: the wedding minigun scene and the line about doomsday and Armageddon having a baby and it is ugly! I didn’t notice anything in this movie that even approched that level of memorable-ness.)
The whole “big strong man” gag was funny on one level, but at another level it smacks of revisionism. If you’ve seen the movies in question, on a lot of them (particularly the older ones; it’s gotten better over time) the princesses were helpless and would have met with horrible fates had they not ended up getting saved by a big strong man. And rather than owning up to it and pointing out how they’re doing better now, it actually feels like Disney is kinda gaslighting us by denying their past and mocking people who bring up the truth.
Also… Groot was in this. And that’s just weird. I mean, it’s cool seeing him and all, but… John C. Reilly (Ralph’s voice actor) played a prominent side character in Guardians of the Galaxy. Not sure why that feels so wrong to me, but it kinda does.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie. It was a good film, but it was by no means the masterpiece that the first one was.
I really liked it (although not as much as the first, maybe) although I did really miss Felix and Calhoun (they’re probably one of my favorite Disney couples to be honest).
I like that they explored the ‘white knight’ phenomenon (Spamley actually calls him that at one point) – maybe not as nuanced or in depth as they could but I think at one point somebody also made a comment about ‘insecurity destroying the internet’ which I felt was also kind of a dig at this kind of behavior. If anything, Ralph gets off a little too easily considering how far he went (or at least, he overcomes his insecurity a little too easily – in real life it would probably take some therapy).
I have to admit though, my favorite part of the movie was hearing Jodi Benson sing again – I know I was being manipulated as the target demographic and it was 100% fan service but seeing all the Disney princesses with all their original voice actors (when possible) was the highlight of my week, lol. (Also, C-3PO as their butler, lol).
I agree the ‘big strong man’ thing was kind of too on the nose in part because I’m not sure what exactly they were poking fun at. I think a lot of the princesses – even the old ones – were a bit more proactive than people give them credit for, so I’m not sure if they’re actually poking fun at their own movies, the perception of their movies, and then I’ve seen some people claim it’s actually an attack on male characters in general by downplaying the male contributions (which ironically seems to miss the point of this movie)…I don’t know. It just seemed like kind of a low hanging fruit – but watching them all get to work together at the end was honestly a better crossover than Infinity Wars to me ;)
I was hoping for a little more video game related humor (MMPOGs etc would probably be a fertile topic), but ah well. And I heard that they ended up losing the rights to Mario so they couldn’t use him as they’d hoped to, which makes me a little sad.
It was ok but why near the beginning when Ralph throws the football through the uprights he says “homerun”??? Also the ending was pretty creepy when the mass of Ralph’s formed into a King King scene….
I’ll be honest, the first 15-20 minutes made me cringe; creators, when you’re writing a sequel that doesn’t really tie in to the first one (or even if it does), please don’t assume that the readers/watchers will need to be spoon-fed the previous episode. Like many (most?) families, we re-watched the original the day before seeing #2 and the rehash was very boring. And long.
After that though I enjoyed it. Sure it’ll probably get dated quickly, but that may work for this one.
Also, anyone who left before the very, absolute end of the movie missed the “Frozen 2” preview that was, frankly, one of the highlights for me. It felt so natural that if it hadn’t been present somewhere I’d have missed it without understanding why.
@5 Dammit I KNEW there was a rickroll somewhere! That’s what I get for leaving before the very, very end.
Of course, the main rule of the movie is ignored here…”Don’t read the comments”. ;)
The credits were exceptionally long due to the vast resources required for animation so the viewers from the NEXT showing started rolling in during this. I know at least one young woman was caught offguard by the Frozen treat because of a very audible gasp and groan.
I really enjoyed the movie, probably about the same as the first. I’m not heavily invested in Felix/Calhoun so it didn’t bother much overmuch that their homelife was only hinted at (and apparently they know everything, so it’s all good.)
The fish out of water script was note perfect and maybe at worst leaving few surprises in that vein. That trope is well worn and they didn’t offer anything new in that regard. Still the characters in general are a delight and I didn’t mind following them down this lane.
Along with the visual translation of internet objects into visual incarnations, the importance of information security gets translated into the plot as emotional security (or insecurity) and is the core driver here. Perhaps it resolved quickly, but I don’t recall having seen the topic of white knighting and relationship control presented in such a clear way. (Not that it never has, just there are a lot of art and so little time to partake.)
One of the benefits of avoiding trailers (more or less) was that the Disney princess scene was pretty fresh for me and I was pretty tickled by the way that played out in plain text, subtext, and visual text (the T-shirt logos were a treat). Clearly Disney does need to add Vanellope to the princess canon!
Overall a really solid effort in my opinion. The “let’s explore the Internet” root has been done, and done so badly over the years that I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t intrude as much as I thought it would. It’s simply presented as-is without a lot of “hey that’s cool”. For them, they took the world as it appeared and just rolled with it. I appreciated that.
In any event, that’s my take on it.
I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as the first one (inevitable given that it’s my favorite Disney movie, I suppose). The first 2/3rds of the movie felt extremely unfocused to me, like it was kinda just wandering from place to place with only a vague idea of an overarching story. Thematically, that fit really well, but as a coherent story not so much. Also, for what it’s worth, I really don’t think “big” or “strong” are adjectives I would apply to almost ANY Disney prince, and most of them don’t do all that much saving… The final scene with the princesses was basically all I’ve ever wanted out of a Kingdom Hearts game though.
” The fact that Ralph Breaks the Internet at one point becomes a movie about an insecure guy stopping a girl from enjoying herself online is downright scary—mostly in how not surprising it is.”
But it’s worth emphasizing here that this is not presented as a good thing. The movie shows Ralph as clearly in the wrong in trying to do this.
Given that they’ve employed pro-Israeli apartheid Gal Gadot & transmisogynist Sarah Silverman, and that their much-touted Black woman character is apparently an impossibly thin anti-Black stereotype, I won’t be seeing this movie. Not interested in Disney continuing to virtue signal while grinding marginalized people into the mud, thanks. (Fyi, I’m Jewish myself, so no crying “antisemitism” at me for calling out my own on their bigotry towards more marginalized people.)
I notice that, while this review has several positive things to say about the inclusion of the Disney princesses, it’s author has neglected to mention the movie’s literal whitewashing of the princesses who are people of colour.
Lastly, the fact that you as an educated adult are not bothered by the branding and product placement in the movie does not make it remotely okay or justifiable to include in a film targeted directly and primarily at children, who cannot possibly share your media literacy.
I was surprised that nobody picked up on how much this movie broke the theme of the first. Wreck it Ralph was about finding happiness where you were. The bad guy is the racer who changed games in order to be the best racer. Ralph Breaks the Internet can be summed up in one sentence by saying “Vanellope goes full turbo, and we’re all supposed to be okay with it because of female empowerment.” I haven’t seen a movie ignore its predecessor that badly since Mulan II, which is about throwing out familiar honor in order to avoid the evil oppression of arranged marriages.
So yeah, if this is all a meta-joke about Disney sequels, they nailed it.
Vanellope is not the villain of Ralph Breaks the Internet! If she was really the new Turbo of the sequel (not to be confused with 20th Century Fox’s Turbo, although they both have Henry Jackman in common as a music composer), she would deliberately try to crash Slaughter Race the same way Turbo crashed Roadblasters, try to make all the Slaughter Race racers and citizens forget Shank the same way Turbo made all the Sugar Rush racers and citizens forget her, or worst of all: go out of her way to stop Ralph from purchasing the Sugar Rush steering wheel at all, so everyone from Sugar Rush is stuck in Fix-it Felix forever.
If Vanellope really had evil plans to take over Slaughter Race the same way Turbo took over Sugar Rush, then Ralph overcoming his insecurity means worse than jacksquat because Vanellope turns out to be an evil banana sending Wreck-it Ralph, Sugar Rush, Slaughter Race, and Fix-it Felix to the desert to starve to death. Fix-it Felix most of all because he can’t believe Ralph let Vanellope get away with Turbo. And for the record, the movie does show Vanellope in the wrong for joining Slaughter Race because Wreck-it Ralph says “Hey, you’re not exactly innocent here. You were going to ditch everybody and abandon Sugar Rush!” Luckily, the other Sugar Rush racers didn’t mind having their President Vanellope absent. Also, I liked that Wreck-it Ralph’s actor was in Guardians of the Galaxy and they brought Groot back for the Oh My Disney part of the story.