Ralph Breaks The Internet (Also knows as Wreck-It Ralph 2, Ralph 2.0... I've seen all three used) is the sequel to the original Wreck-It Ralph, released six years ago. I reviewed that one a couple years ago, if you feel like checking that review out (spoiler alert, though). In this new installment, Ralph and Vanellope are still best buds, six years after their adventure in Sugar Rush. They have fun in the various games of Litwak's arcade, they reminisce about life as video game characters, they look at the light of the real world coming through the sole unused plug of the power strip. Then they go in their respective games for doing what is, essentially, their job.
Vanellope is growing tired of always being on the same race tracks, seeing the same things over and over, and she wants more out of life. Ralph decides to create a race track just for her in Sugar Rush, which she unfortunately decides to drive into just as she's being controlled by a player, overriding theit input. Even though Vanellope ends up having loads of fun, the struggle on the gamer's side of things causes the steering wheel of the Sugar Rush cabinet to come off... and then Litwak literally breaks it in two while trying to repair it. Thankfully, another gamer in the arcade searches for a replacement online and finds one on eBay for just 200$. Litwak can't afford it though, so all seems lost.
As Sugar Rush is about to get unplugged, the candy and human inhabitants of that world hurry into the power strip, leaving the other inhabitants of the Arcade to figure out what to do. Most inhabitants find places to stay, while Fix-It Felix and Sergeant Tamora Calhoun decide to "adopt" the other racers (for what's, hopefully, temporary considering there's 15 of them!!). That evening, Ralph talks with Felix and figures out that there's only one way to save Sugar Rush: Go into the Internet (through the router Litwak installed that exact morning, no less!), buy the wheel, ship it to Litwak's and voilà!
The Internet is a gigantic place that looks like a city. This film had to keep doing everything like it's a giant metaphor, considering it did so in the original film. Unlike, say, The Emoji Movie where the apps felt like the focus more than the actual characters (not that there was much character in The Emoji Movie to begin with, it was soulless garbage) and were unchanged, with characters acting around them, here the websites tend to keep up the metaphor, usually in very clever ways, and the focus is always on the characters and their relationships. Most of the real-life websites pop up (heh) here or there, for cameo value, while the sites and games that really matter to the plot are invented, such as Buzzztube, the replacement YouTube... in a world where YouTube also exists, apparently.
Don't think about it too much, or many elements of the metaphor will start falling apart.
Moving to eBay to find the steering wheel, Ralph and Vanellope wind up dueling against a user for it, and end up pumping the price to a ridiculous 27,001.00$. You've read that right. But in order to keep the wheel, they now need to collect money. Real-life money. Well, the answer to that is simple, hire a hacker to get into PewDiePie's bank accounts. He won't notice. Nah, they first choose to follow an online ad that promises easy money through gaming.
Spamley (the spam advert's name), voiced by Bill Hader, redirects them to Slaughter Race, an online game... um... How to describe that one... Well, imagine Ubisoft's The Crew (as the game seems to focus a lot on street racing) with a hefty dose of GTA, and probably the more insane parts of Saints Row thrown in, all while staying as close to a PG-13 as a PG-rated movie can get. That attempt at easy money fails as they're unable to outwit the racer in the game whose car they had been sent off to steal. Shank, voiced by Gal Gadot, is the resident awesome woman, and though she applauds Vanellope's talent behind a steering wheel, she suggests Ralph gathers the money by becoming an Internet sensation instead. Time to get VIRAL in here!
And that's where I should stop. That's all I can reveal without delving into major spoilers for the story. There's of course Yesss, the character shown in the trailers (voiced by Taraji P. Henson), who turns out to be the Head of Buzzztube, explaining a lot of the elements of Internet fame, but I only mention her because she's in the trailers. The fictional fansite Oh My Disney is there with more cameos than you can shake a stick at, with of course all the scenes shown in promotional material of Vanellope interacting with the MANY princesses of Disney. The late Stan Lee's in there as an online avatar, too... I promised to myself that I wouldn't sob! In short: It was in a trailer? It's in the film in a form or another.
I'll be completely honest: I saw spoilers for this film about a month ago, when some guy in a Discord server I visit posted the entire synopsis as taken from a tie-in coloring book. Going to the theater, I mostly remembered small parts of that synopsis, including some plot details that made me leery as it would have been extremely easy to screw them up. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded. Ralph Breaks The Internet manages to work with these plot elements and the Aesop that is attached to them, while not cutting out any of the emotion tied to the conflict of the story.
A story about the Internet would have been really, really easy to mess up, as we've seen before. The internal logic would need to be strong, and the metaphor would have to hold up. As I say, the film mostly manages to work with all of those elements, by keeping the brand names mostly out of focus or as cameos, and by substituting every element of the online "world" (such as being connected, moving to a website, and so on) with something that feels appropriate as a replacement.
Like I said, though, don't spend too long thinking about that metaphor. Some things will eventually stick out as making little or no sense, and then you'll keep on searching for more things that don't work when you overthink. Don't do that. Trust me, some questions I have about this "world" will keep me up at night.
Disney gets an opportunity to do a lot of self-deprecation in this one, through Oh My Disney and the princesses, but also by spoofing recurring elements of Disney films, both old and recent. I won't tell you what exactly, but it's great. Unfortunately, the film still feels very much like a modern Disney film, meaning it's got beats to follow and tropes to feature, some of which have been seen in most, if not all, of the recent Disney films. Disney has been criticized a lot for becoming formulaic over the last few years, and that criticism is justified. Thankfully, it's not every recurring motif of recent animated Disney films that made it into this one, though I'm not saying more about that...
About 80% to 90% of the film takes place on the Internet. Once we follow Ralph and Vanellope in there, we nearly forget about Litwak's Arcade. We don't cut back every once in a while to seeing how Felix and Calhoun do, raising fifteen candy-themed human brats. Thankfully, the beginning and the end of the film make up for it with loads of great moments and jokes, from Zangief reading Dostoievsky to the Surge Protector (the "spirit" of the power strip) being given more personality in every scene where he appears.
About 80% to 90% of the film takes place on the Internet. Once we follow Ralph and Vanellope in there, we nearly forget about Litwak's Arcade. We don't cut back every once in a while to seeing how Felix and Calhoun do, raising fifteen candy-themed human brats. Thankfully, the beginning and the end of the film make up for it with loads of great moments and jokes, from Zangief reading Dostoievsky to the Surge Protector (the "spirit" of the power strip) being given more personality in every scene where he appears.
All in all, it's a good film. I hesitate to call it as good as the first Wreck-It Ralph, because it's so radically different it feels like comparing apples and oranges. I love the first, I greatly enjoyed the second. It's still very creative and insightful. I recommend it, though I suggest you watch the first film beforehand.
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