IS it possible for a film to feel both corporate and heartfelt? The two might seem diametrically opposed but Ralph Breaks The Internet, the sequel to 2012’s mega hit nostalgia-fest video game-themed animation Wreck-It Ralph, arrives to smash the two together into a feast for the eyes with its finger firmly on the web’s pulse.
We catch up with the lovable, towering video game bad guy Ralph (voiced by John C Reilly) and his adorable pint-sized princess friend Vanellope (Sarah Silverman), enjoying life as best friends in their little video game world located inside an arcade.
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Only Vanellope’s longing for a change to her now-predictable Sugar Rush racing game chips away at their contented life. Then, one day, the world they know is turned upside down when the owner of the arcade installs a mysterious thing called Wi-Fi (“Whiffy? Or is it wifey?” Ralph wonders).
Ignoring signs to stay out of the Wi-Fi portal, Ralph and Vanellope venture on a journey to the internet so they can guarantee a replacement steering wheel (from Ebay, where else?) for Sugar Rush when the original is accidentally broken, thus risking Vanellope’s home being retired for good.
Where the first Wreck-It Ralph sent nostalgic tingles down the spines of anyone who has ever played arcade games, the sequel switches its focus to something that dominates modern life – the internet. The film has a lot of fun embracing the myriad of wacky possibilities that concept affords.
By depicting the internet as a living, breathing, method-in-the-madness cityscape of sorts where things are physically moved around as they make their way from the virtual to real world, it creates a bountiful source of references, in-jokes and lampooning as much as it does a thrilling mission adventure for our two adorable leads.
Ebay is depicted as a literal auction centre; Twitter is a series of trees where songful birds carry people’s thoughts to the world; Amazon is a towering warehouse; and there’s a literal search bar. In a way it’s a kind of nostalgia for today, or at the very least a self-aware dive into the deep end of that thing which dominates so much of our day-to-day life.
It may seem that this film could be compared to the Emoji Movie – which felt like a soulless corporate exercise with as wrong-headed messages for the young target audience as we’re likely to get in this day and age.
But Ralph Breaks The Internet avoids that fate with a real sense of wit and a niftiness in the visuals that demonstrates that it comprehends how the internet works (from viral sensations to annoying pop-up ads and literal viruses causing havoc). It manages to integrate the simultaneous vastness and intricacy in a way that’s both inventive in pushing the narrative forward and just fun to behold for its own sake.
The corporate feel is definitely there, as if Disney is showing off the properties they own and are allowed to depict on-screen. I mean, no other studio could have Iron Man flying around a Pixar logo as Storm Troopers patrol the area.
But it also works as a deconstruction of all that, not least in a highlight sequence in which Vanellope finds herself in a room full of Disney’s beloved princesses who question her own princess status. “Do people assume all your problems got solved because a big strong man showed up?... She IS a princess!” they exclaim.
Even when it slips back into its comfortable old shoes rather than sticking 100% to the new – an extended sequence in a game called Slaughter Race feels like a bit of a souped-up re-treading of the Sugar Rush sequences from the first film – there’s always a glint in its winking eye as well as real care and attention paid to the central friendship.
As much as it dazzles the eyes, it has genuine and worthwhile messages about kindness, acceptance and loneliness nestled in there to make it feel anything but auto-generated.
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