Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet Plot Summary:
When the steering wheel of the Sugar Rush arcade cabinet breaks, Wreck-it Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (voice of Sarah Silverman) literally go into the internet to find a new one.
My concerns for Wreck-It Ralph 2 were high. When the first one came out in 2012, I saw it twice in theaters. I loved it a lot. I didn’t just adore it for its clever jokes or video game references; I also really enjoyed the story. That, and, it has sentimental value for me because it was the first movie I saw with my then girlfriend, now fiancee. So yeah, the sequel had some pressure on it.
Obviously knowing that movie number two was going to be removed from the arcade environment and put into the internet realm, I thought that I just wouldn’t be able to settle into the world as much, only because of my love of the arcade and old school gaming.
Thankfully, Ralph Breaks the Internet keeps the video game references in place to bookend the movie, much like the first, but once the story takes off, we are treated to a bunch of internet puns, gags, and clever writing that fall in line with how the first movie made fun of gaming and candy brands. There’s also a ton of similarities to Inside Out.
In that movie, the writers found a funny ways to explain memories and songs stuck in your head; this sequel finds a way to describe pop-up ads, search engines, and the dreadful comment sections found everywhere over the internet. While these jokes fly at a furious pace, not all of them work, but before you know it, another one swoops in to make you laugh.
The best part of this movie is where Vanellope travels to the Disney website. You’ve probably seen some of the “princess scene” in the trailer, but the movie expands upon it with hilarious results. There are also a ton of cameos to be found in this part of the movie, or just things to look out for. What could have been a worthless set of sequences for Disney to just include certain characters is a set of sincerely memorable and hilarious moments.
We are also introduced to a new racing game on the internet, called Slaughter Race, where Ralph and Vanellope meet Shank (voice of Gal Gadot) and her crew. Shank features heavily in the film, as does the race environment, and while some of it is good, this is where the film starts to falter in the pacing. In addition, Shank’s crew feels tacked onto the movie, and doesn’t really add anything to the story. However, when avatars are shown in the game, their animated movement is quite hilarious.
It would be tough to surpass the original Wreck-It Ralph, especially in my mind, and in the minds of many others. The movie just had some sort of magic to it, and creating a world that moves outside the arcade and into something more, well, modern, was a somewhat risky step. However, I have to credit the writers and directors for trying something different, because at the end of it all, it worked. Ralph Breaks the Internet is a funny, clever, and enjoyable sequel that finds a way to put heart into the story and tell the tale of undeniable friendship at its best and its worst. I had a really good time with this movie and I’ll be there waiting to log on if a third one comes along, no doubt about it.
Rating: 8/10
