Ralph Breaks the Internet Film Review

For as long as I can remember I have always loved Disney’s animated movies. Even now as a twenty year old I still get so excited to go watch animated movies in the cinema and when a Wreck it Ralph sequel was announced of being in the works I knew I had to see it on the big screen. After seeing the teaser trailers and waiting well over a year I was finally able to go and watch it and I can safely say I wasn’t disappointed.

The first Wreck it Ralph movie is one of my all time favourite films and so when going into the film I was excited but also apprehensive as sequels have a tendency to not live up to the original. When watching the trailers I noticed people in the comments comparing it to the Emoji movie and were questioning the films concept for that fact.

The first film focused in the world of video game characters who all coincide together within an arcade that their games collectively live in. The film follows Ralph, a villain from the game ‘Fix it Felix Jr‘ who wants more than being the bad guy in a game that no one likes. The second film however followed Ralph and his best friend Vanellope as they enter into the internet after their arcade finally gets the magic of WiFi. Their goal is to go to eBay to find Vanellope a steering wheel controller after the one attached to her game ‘Sugar Rush‘ broke off.

The way Disney chose to explore and portray the internet in this film was magical. I love the creative ways in which they thought up how to create things we all know and love on the internet in a very visually pleasing and easily identifiable way. Twitter contained literal tree branches full of blue birds tweeting both in the literal and metaphorical sense. EBay was filled with literal auctioneers with little mallets selling off the goods, Instagram was a literal art gallery and everyone using the internet were represented through little avatars of themselves and pop ups were literal people popping up left and right trying to entice you into following their links. The creativity of the internet was endless in this film and it is so jam packed with references that it would take multiple watches in order to spot everything they snuck in. Disney managed to nail the internet down to a T.

Their use of the their own franchises which include Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars was very cleverly thought out and any Disney fan could appreciate such self awareness of the use of their own franchises within the film. The Disney princesses were the stars of the show in this aspect. When I found out that Disney had brought all of the princesses together to interact with one another I flipped out, it’s genius and I love it. Not only was it interesting to see the original 2D princesses come to live in a 3D form but it was great to see them play on their own specialities from their films and go as far as to joke about princesses “needing a big strong man” in their lives. The fact that they also modernised all of them, giving each princess screen time in not only their classic outfits but then also showing them in modern comfy pyjamas just made the experience that much more memorable and fun.

Some of the humour and the boundaries Disney decided to cross really impressed me as well. There were multiple examples in this film were I was shocked to see such a squeaky clean seeming company go to a more risky level in order to explore everything properly. One example is when the Vanellope first encounters the princesses they all instinctively grab for something that they can defend themselves with. Mulan has her sword, Merida has her bow and arrow and then you have Cinderella who goes and smashes her glass slipper to create a deadly weapon of shards of broken glass.

Another example is the online multiplier game titled ‘Slaughter Race‘, a dark, grimy looking racer game filled with tattooed thugs, dumpsters fires and dangerous driving. The also had Vanellope sing, which in my opinion made things even funnier because it was making fun of the “Disney princesses stare at bodies of water for a while before bursting into song”. The third example which is what shocked me the most was Disney going and referencing the dark web. When Ralph descends down into the dark web I was sat in the theatre like “no…it can’t be….they would never” and it was. Disney went there people and my jaw was on the floor. I mean I’m an adult and the idea of the dark net freaks me the hell out from everything I’ve heard so the fact that a animated children’s film decided to reference is was, impressive to say the least. It was a very cleverly done move on their part.

As you can probably tell from my “review” (if you could even call it that) I loved everything about Ralph Breaks the Internet. Disney did so incredibly well to create a sequel that can stand its own ground next to the original and won’t go down in history as another disappointing sequel just to milk a franchise. My only criticism of the film is whether it will be so relevant and funny in the future like in fifty years time when technology and the internet have moved on. Whilst we live in an age where everything the film explores is very accurate and current, times will change and the film may become something that we as a generation can relate to and look back on and laugh at whilst future generations may not get the jokes or references. Kind of like when I watch old stuff with my parents and they understand references which completely goes over my head because I wasn’t alive during the time it was made.

Whilst Ralph Breaks the Internet may not stand the test of time in that respect it will definitely have a place in my heart as a new favourite. I look forward to the DVD release so I can watch it all over again.

Until next time thanks for reading and I hope you’re having a great day!

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