Ralph Breaks the Internet

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Filmology Rating: 2.75 out of 4

Ralph Breaks the Internet is the sequel to a film that I guess everyone really loved. Video game bad guy, Ralph, and his not girlfriend and not daughter, Vanellope von Schweetz, must risk it all by traveling to the World Wide Web in search of a replacement part to save Vanellope's video game, "Sugar Rush."

So I was not excited to see this at all. The first one was cute and I didn't really care for Ralph, so that dampened my connection with Ralph which made the first act a bit of a drag, but once the plot started moving forward, it get better by each act (like any good film should). So the positives of the film is definitely everything to do with the internet world. The film got creative with how the internet was visually represented with pop-up ads and the dark web. There is also a lot of humor that is very meta about the internet and issues with it which fit nicely into the theme of letting go and dealing with loneliness.

This movie was not The Grinch (2018). The second Ralph movie was not: "put your kids in front of a screen to make them shut up for 90 minutes with a film that has no emotional depth, themes or layers to the film." This second Ralph movie was incredibly layered and really had something to say regarding the internet and deals with helicopter parenting as well. The best thing about the movie is that it's not just for kids (like The Grinch which is the equivalent of dangling a shiny object in front of a cat). This is a film that parents can take a lot away from and actually sit their kids down and have a conversation with them about certain topics in this film. I also really liked the tight script. With the endless world that is the internet, this film could have been another Emoji Movie but this film focuses its plot and themes to the overarching story (you know, like a movie).

I did get little bored around 45 minutes in and there is also way too much Disney crap. So this film was produced by Disney Animation. There is also a sequence where a character goes to Disneyland where we see Star Wars, Marvel, Princesses, C-3P0, and it started to go into the realm of: "how much Disney can we cram into the frame of this scene." Sure the princess thing pays off later, but we spend too much time there and it almost feels unimportant to the overarching story.

However, this a movie that kids and parents will love that just isn't garbage on the screen to distract you for 90 minutes. This is a film that has something to say. I also recommend people look deeper into a film past the surface level when analyzing anything. Think about what you're watching and see what you pull from it instead of blindly consuming media.

Rating: See It

-Nolan