Ralph Breaks the Internet

Wreck-It Ralph (2012) was a fine movie but not the Disney animated feature most deserving of a sequel.  In their comparatively short history, Disney subsidiary Pixar has revisited their previous hits quite often.  Walt Disney Animation Studios traditionally has not.  There have only been four (4) follow-ups in the Disney Animated Canon since 1937.  These are not their most oft-remembered films: The Three Caballeros (1944), The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Fantasia 2000, and Winnie the Pooh (2011).  With Frozen 2, coming out next year, I worry the dependence is becoming a habit.  Ralph Breaks the Internet is currently their fifth.  It’s a pleasant diversion but destined to join the sequel bin as well.  Like the majority of their kind, less delightful than the original.  Wreck-It Ralph detailed an existential crisis of sorts.  It was about a baddie who deep down really was a sweetheart of a guy.  The intellectualism was pitched toward a very young age so while the narrative didn’t stimulate an adult brain much, at least the drama had heart.  Ralph Breaks the Internet is something else entirely.  It’s noisier, more destructive, and amps up the pop culture references.  The heart, however, has been dialed way down.

It doesn’t help that Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) is an even bigger part of this saga.  Wreck-It Ralph was charming before the pint-sized princess showed up.  You may recall she was a pixelated programming glitch in the candy-coated kart-racing game Sugar Rush.  Simply put, she was a brat.  The close friendship that Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope forged in the first entry at least made her tolerable.  Her character hasn’t changed.  If anything, she has become more self-centered.  In this chapter, Vanellope is bored.  She has grown tired of the repetitive nature of her racing game.  One day she ventures off the prescribed track.  This leads to a series of events where the physical steering wheel on the outside of the console that is used to play the game, gets broken. Unable to replace the part, the arcade owner Mr. Litwak (Ed O’Neill) unplugs the game leaving the denizens inside homeless.  Yet all is not lost.  Litwak has recently introduced Wi-Fi to the arcade.  Ralph and Vanellope can visit the internet via the newly installed Wi-Fi router.  They plan to locate and purchase a new steering wheel for Sugar Rush.

Naturally, a journey into cyberspace is a great set-up for lots of gags.  The real internet is a wild and scary place but here it has been rendered unimaginatively as just a chaotic metropolis.  I’ve said this before, but as long as movies keep doing it, I’ll keep calling it out.  Recontextualizing something you’ve seen elsewhere by simply appropriating it into in your story is a very lazy form of comedy.  Ralph Breaks the Internet has nothing interesting or insightful to say about things like YouTube or Instagram or Twitter.  The script is simply cognizant that these social networks exist and that they can feature vapid things.  For example, the screenplay is aware that people do indeed film themselves eating unbearably spicy foods.  It’s relying on the reaction “Hey! I’ve watched things like that on YouTube before!”  If the idea of seeing such things in a cartoon makes you laugh, then perhaps you will be delighted by the level of humor presented here.

The buzz-worthy scene occurs when Vanellope enters the online hub of the Magic Kingdom and encounters a roomful of Disney princesses.  The spectacle would reek of smug self-promotion if it wasn’t so contemptuous of its own product.  The Disney studio lampoons what its critics have alleged for years, that their princesses are anachronistic shells of an outdated trope.  Snow White, Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, and many more appear.  They’re all here but they kind of blend together as one insipid personality.  The girl from Brave is somewhat differentiated because nobody can understand the way she talks.  She’s ridiculed for her accent.  I’ve heard of biting the hand that feeds you, but this takes the saying to a whole new level.

Ralph Breaks the Internet isn’t as appealing as the first.  It’s bright and colorful as it plays but this fable has a troubling moral.  While in the World Wide Web, Vanellope is seduced by the nihilistic and violent Slaughter Race. It’s a dark and gritty Grand Theft Auto-style action adventure game with cars.  There she meets the strikingly beautiful driver Shank (Gal Gadot) in whom she confides her dissatisfaction with her life and more shockingly, Ralph himself.  This is after the poor chap has been humiliating himself in a series of viral videos for her sake.  He’s been trying to earn enough money through “likes” so he can buy the steering wheel she needs for her game to work again.  That’s gratitude for ya.  Back in 1939, Dorothy famously learned “There’s no place like home” in The Wizard of Oz.  Vanellope feels the exact opposite.  She hates where she’s from.  Ralph’s attachment to his dear friend is presented as his flaw.  Simple types that love unconditionally get no respect in this universe.  He’s a bit of an oaf.  Some might even call him a rube.  Vanellope is a woman on the move and this big galoot is holding her back.  She has no use for such provincial types.  I, however, happen to admire that kind of unreciprocated devotion.  (whispers) Psst….hey Ralph, get out of that relationship quick!   She’s toxic.

11-22-18