Movie Thoughts: Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

• Released: November 21, 2018
  
• Directed by: Phil Johnston, Rich Moore
• Running time: 1 h 52 min
• Rating 2/5

Synopsis

Ralph and Vanellope must save the game of Sugar Rush by gathering enough money on the Internet to buy a new steering wheel. Vanellope starts to wonder where she truly belongs, much to the dismay of Ralph.

My Thoughts

Who thought this was a good idea? Wreck-It Ralph is one of my favorite more recent Disney movies and it didn't even need a sequel, especially not one that spits in the face of the original.

Plot time: Some time has passed since the first movie and Vanellope is now bored of Sugar Rush. When an accident causes the Sugar Rush game to break, she and Ralph travel to the newly-installed Internet to see if they can order a new steering wheel to save the game and its inhabitant. The problem: they'll need to raise a lot of money for that, which they do by Ralph going viral on a YouTube-clone. After Vanellope discovers an online game called Slaughter Race, she starts to feel like she belongs here, which makes Ralph feel left behind, leading to an interesting turn of events.

God I just...do not like this movie. Look, I don't think it's outright trash like some people call it, but I still do think it's bad and also just...not a good follow-up to the first. Because it basically goes right against the message of the first. Remember one of the major lessons the characters learned there? Do. Not. Go. Turbo. AKA leaving your game and inserting yourself into others where you aren't programmed to be, specifically during playing time. Ralph goes Turbo in the first part of the movie while trying to help Vanellope with a new racing track, which leads to the breaking of Sugar Rush. 

Then, later on and much more major, Vanellope decides that she doesn't belong in Sugar Rush anymore and instead wants to live in the more mature racing game Slaughter Race. Which is just...not it. That's exactly what Turbo, the villain of the first movie, did that was so bad. It's what literally gave "going Turbo" it's name. And now one of our main character's is doing it and we're even supposed to see it as a good thing, because Vanellope leaving Sugar Rush for the other game is shown in a positive light and it is the ultimate outcome of the movie. 

Sure, Ralph thinks it's bad, but he's kind of shown as the one in the wrong here. He's being overly attached and resistant to change here. Also, just this aside, the whole idea of this grown man character getting so upset because this girl of like, what, eight, ten? Refuses to hang out with him comes off as kinda creepy. It'd be one thing if this was more of like a mentor-student relationship or family or whatever, but Ralph and Vanellope really are just friends in this movie and it's...weird. I get that they're in-universe game-characters where they're just programmed pixels who happen to be alive, but still. It looks weird. 

Also, just, I do not like this movie in many other regards, either. Ralph's character development feels so needlessly over the top, the Internet's design is not pleasing to look at, the Oh My Disney scene is some of the most blatant jerking-off of the Disney Company I've seen (outside of that one scene in the recent Pinocchio live action remake), the whole message is all wrong and contradictory to that of the first movie, it isn't funny and outside of one or two scenes I liked (I'll admit, the Slaughter Race song was pretty fun) I just...didn't have a good time with this one. Also, oh my god, the product placement. Please stop.

It just kinda sucks that this pretty darn great first Disney film has such a bad follow-up. Like, it'd be one thing to be a bad sequel, but to also be literally antithetical to the message of the first is just beyond stupid. Did these writers even watch the first and catch on to the fact that going Turbo is something game characters are not supposed to do? Oh well. Bad movie, skip it. Stick with the first, it's good and competent and it didn't even need a followup to begin with.