Ralph Breaks the Internet 2018
I wasn’t a huge fan of Wreck-It Ralph, but I had seen that one on TV before I started following the Disney animated feature canon as closely as I do now. I wanted to see this one at the theaters if possible and I am glad I did because with all of the racing scenes, it looks pretty amazing on a big screen. The movie itself is pretty straightforward as Ralph and Vanellope venture out into the internet to look for a spare part for her video game console before the owner can junk the console. Since they are arcade game characters, they don’t really know about the internet, so the movie has a lot of fun with throwing in all kinds of internetisms like eBay, pop-up ads, the dark web, search engines, and going viral. Then they throw in a lot of stuff like Disney princesses (which is funny, but maybe should have worked better than it did). The problem is that being current and relevant is no subsitute for a great story. Ultimately the story is pretty straightforward with a lot of creative ways to incorporate all of that web stuff and it seems to move along pretty quickly, though there are a few snags. In the end the movie has some nice, but kind of sad, themes about friendship and how people change. I think I enjoyed the movie more than the first one, but it still didn’t really reasonate like some others from Pixar and Disney over the last few years and I worry that all of the pop internet references may age badly.
Written: 24 Dec 2018
Owned on: Digital