Ralph Breaks the Internet

I’m not saying that slavish adherence to the Will of Walt is the way to go. For one thing, let’s unionize the entire company, from animators to Imagineers to the people who sweep the parks. That said, it’s worth noting that Walt was opposed to sequels and only approved one of them during his lifetime, because they’d come up with too many gags for The Absent-Minded Professor and he agreed they could do a second one. Now, I don’t entirely disapprove of sequels. There are some sequels I really love. And then there’s Ralph Breaks the Internet.

Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) remain best friends years after the events of the first movie. They play in their games by day and hang out together by night. Ralph’s still comfortable with now being the villain of his game, but Vanellope is getting bored. Ralph builds a new racetrack for her in her game, during the day, and she drives on it—causing the player to break the steering wheel of the console. Fortunately, Mr. Litwak (Ed O’Neill) has just gotten the internet in the Year Of Our Lord 2018.

So Ralph and Vanellope go into the internet to buy the one and only replacement wheel, only to discover that eBay requires real money. To earn money, they agree to complete a mission in the racing game Slaughter Race. Its main character, Shank (Gal Gadot), sympathizes with their plight but won’t let them steal her car; instead, she gets her friend Yesss (Taraji P. Henson) to make Ralph a BuzzzTube star and earn money that way. Meanwhile, Vanellope is feeling dissatisfied with her lot and wants to leave Sugar Rush and be a Slaughter Race character instead.

Now, if you’ve seen the first movie, you’re thinking, “And then she learns to be content with her lot because she would literally destroy the code of games.” Because the moral of that first movie, which I really like, is “sometimes, you just have to be satisfied with what life gives you. However, screw that noise, because being satisfied with life is for losers.

Again, don’t get me wrong—you absolutely should be able to make life better for yourself. And in the first movie, Ralph does. Sure, he still hates his day job, but let’s remember that he isn’t a human. It literally does break his world if he isn’t there, doing his job. And, yes, there are enough other racers in Sugar Rush that not having Vanellope in the day’s assortment doesn’t leave a gap. But the moral of the first movie was “you can make your life better,” and the moral of this one seems to be, “if you can’t, it’s fine; just bail.”

In a way, that Vanellope fits in so well with the world of Slaughter Race is its own example of how badly she fits in Sugar Rush, which is a failing of the writers of the first movie. Vanellope’s always been my least-favourite part of the movie. Try to imagine any of the other racers making the crossover. The other racers are more junior high bullies than, you know, street racer thugs. Vanellope doesn’t fit with the Disney princesses—we’ll get to them—but she doesn’t fit with her own game’s characters, either.

There are some clever bits to the movie, yes. Alan Tudyk is of course back, this time as “KnowsMore,” the personification of a search engine. There’s a small reference to a store called Desmond’s Tutus that I quite like. Sonic (Roger Craig Smith) knowing about the internet, fine. Litwak owning an iMac of the vintage candy-coloured variety. Pop-up ads just being those annoying people who follow you around in malls, just digital. Felix (Jack McBrayer) and Calhoun (Jane Lynch) being supportive parents and successfully handling all those racers.

And, yes, the princesses. The only three not voiced by their original voice actresses are Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty; in one case, the original actress retired, and in the other two, they’re dead. It’s a clever sequence, and if more of the movie were that and less were “Ralph is so cataclysmically needy that he creates a virus that almost destroys everything,” I’d like the movie a whole lot better. Ralph walks back his emotional growth, and Vanellope goes Turbo, and what’s even happening here? I’d rather spend time with Merida (Kelly Macdonald, of course) even with the joke that her accent is impenetrable.

The movie never stops feeling like they wanted to make a sequel but didn’t really have a good idea for one. There’s a real conversation to be had about arcades in the internet age, though I’d note that my son really, really wants to visit a local arcade/restaurant. There’s even an interesting story about “we do the same thing every day for years, even decades, and what do you do if you’re bored?” Even beyond “well, you just learn to live with it.” Hell, Sugar Rush has got to be more interesting than the older games in that arcade, right? The movie never comes together and never feels as though it wants to. Also, it should’ve been called Ralph Wrecks the Internet.