Why, you take on the internet of course... so what Wreck it Ralph did for gaming, Ralph Breaks the Internet does for 2018 internet culture.
Or the Disney-fied version of it anyway.
This does feel at times like it's hitting some of the same story themes that the first movie touched on six years ago, but overall it does feel like a more mature story, in a completely Disney way, obviously.
At it's heart, this movie is about growing up and realising that if you love something, you can set it free. But also that it's okay to want to want to stay behind.
Along the way, there's a lot of references to the internet that are going to go flying over the heads of very small children, but at the same time, they do get the message out there that you never read the comments, which is good. Also, Disney princesses... a lot of Disney princesses.
I will say, without spoilers, that I very much appreciated the return of the princesses at the end of the movie, tonally it was just right.
It will be interesting to watch these two movies back to back, given that the first one is beautifully rendered and full of colour and great visuals... but with this much time having passed, I did notice details in this movie I don't remember from the first one... the patch on the back of Ralph's overalls for example... but the lighting, effects and rendering of "the internet" are all amazing.
It's a shame in some ways that there weren't more of Felix and Calhoun this time around. I get it, they've been happily married for the last six years and having them there would have pulled focus from the Ralph and Vanellope story. There is a nice set up and payoff with them at the beginning and end of the movie though.
Of the new characters, princesses notwithstanding, it's a toss up between Taraji P. Henson as Yesss (thankfully not Yasss) and Gal Gadot as Shank... both strong female characters (and in Shank's case, in a role that would probably be male in most video games) but in very different ways.
Just touching on Shank for a minute... or more on Shank's game... and mild spoilers follow. So the world is just going to be cool with having essentially a seven year old girl showing up as a character in a violent online car game? Nobody is going to have a massive internet outcry? Yeah, I think they just might. It's a completely minor thing, and I'm not even bothered, but it's the one moment that threw me out of the movie to be honest.
I will also say that it's one of the few Disney/Pixar movies (this, and the first one are both Disney movies, but honestly feels like they should have been the other side of the street) that is going to age horribly. Yeah, they mostly stayed away from anything on the internet that wasn't one of the larger names, but still, there's going to come a point when things in the movie aren't things that exist any more.
But that's the price you pay for putting internet things in your movie I guess (and the major plot items are mostly made-up companies).
It's a good movie overall though... not top tier for Disney stuff, but lots of fun, especially for people like me who spend too much of their time on the internet.
Oh, and this is definitely a movie that you want/need to stay all the way through the absurdly long credit sequence... you can thank me later.
yani's rating: 3 steering wheels out of 5
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