Psycho's Movie Reviews #261: Ralph Breaks The Internet (2018)

Ralph Breaks the Internet is a 2018 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The 57th animated film produced by the studio, it is the sequel to the 2012 film Wreck-It Ralph. Directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Johnston and Pamela Ribon, produced by Clark Spencer, and executive-produced by John Lasseter, Jennifer Lee, and Chris Williams,[a] the film stars the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Taraji P. Henson, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Alfred Molina, and Ed O'Neill.

The first discussions about a sequel to Wreck-It Ralph began in September 2012, and the new instalment went through three different scripts before the filmmakers settled on the final plot. When the film was officially announced in June 2016 as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2, much of the original cast confirmed they had signed on, with new cast members added in 2018. It is Walt Disney Animation Studios' first computer-animated film sequel and is the first sequel from the studio to be created by the original film's writing and directing team.

Ralph Breaks the Internet premiered in Los Angeles on November 5, 2018, and was released in the United States on November 21. The film grossed over $529.3 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards, 76th Golden Globe Awards, and 24th Critics' Choice Awards, losing all three to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Plot

Six years after the events of the first film, Ralph and Vanellope have stayed best friends, hanging out after work in Litwak's Arcade. Ralph is content with their life, but Vanellope longs for excitement and expresses how bored she has become of Sugar Rush's predictability. To please her, Ralph sneaks into her game and makes a secret road. The next day, when Vanellope fights the arcade player's control to test the track, the cabinet's steering wheel breaks. As the company that made Sugar Rush is defunct, and the cost of a replacement wheel on eBay is too high, Litwak decides to scrap Sugar Rush and unplugs the game, leaving its citizens homeless.

The Surge Protector finds homes for all Sugar Rush's citizens as a short-term measure as they figure out how to save the game, with Felix and Calhoun adopting the racers. Remembering eBay, Ralph and Vanellope travel through Litwak's new Wi-Fi router to the Internet, a place where websites are represented as buildings in a sprawling city, avatars represent users, and programs are people.

The search engine KnowsMore directs them to eBay, where they win the auction for the steering wheel by unintentionally spiking the price to US$27,001; they have just 24 hours to raise the funds, or they will forfeit the bid and lose the wheel. On the way out, they run into clickbait salesman J. P. Spamley, who brokers items obtained from video games and offers them a lucrative job of stealing a car from Shank, the lead character in the popular racing-centred battle royale game Slaughter Race. They steal Shank's car, but she stops them before they can leave the game with it. Suggesting another way to make money on the Internet, she proceeds to make a viral video of Ralph and uploads it to video-sharing site BuzzzTube. She directs them to BuzzzTube's head algorithm, Yesss, who elates on Ralph's video popularity. They decide to make more videos, which will earn them the money for the wheel if they attract enough views.

Vanellope offers to help advertise the videos, and Ralph has Yesss send her to Oh My Disney. There, while being chased by Stormtroopers for advertising on the site, Vanellope befriends the Disney Princesses, being encouraged by them to discuss her sense of un-fulfillment and reaching an epiphany in the form of an "I Want" song on the subject. Ralph makes enough money to buy the wheel but finds Vanellope talking with Shank about staying in Slaughter Race, having felt at home there due to its relative novelty and unpredictability compared to Sugar Rush.

Worried of losing his friend forever, Ralph asks Spamley for a way to draw Vanellope out of the game and is brought to the dark web vendor Double Dan, who provides Ralph with a virus, Arthur, that feeds off insecurities and replicates them. When Ralph unleashes Arthur into Slaughter Race, it replicates Vanellope's glitch, triggering a server reboot. Ralph, Shank, and the others help Vanellope escape before the game resets. Vanellope blames herself for the crash, but Ralph confesses to her that the crash was actually his fault. Outraged, Vanellope throws away his hero cookie medal and runs off.

As a guilt-ridden Ralph finds his now-cracked-in-half medal, Arthur copies Ralph's insecurities and makes duplicates of Ralph. The clones overrun the Internet in a DoS attack, all chasing after Vanellope to keep her for themselves. Ralph saves her and attempts to lure the clones into a firewall, but they form a giant Ralph monster that seizes them both. Ralph comes to accept that Vanellope can make her own choices, letting go of his insecurities. This also causes the giant Ralph monster and the clones to disappear, and Ralph and Vanellope reconcile. Ralph gives half of the broken medal to Vanellope and they bid each other a heartfelt farewell as Shank has arranged for Vanellope to respawn in Slaughter Race.

Back in the arcade, Sugar Rush is repaired, and Ralph partakes in social activities with the other arcade characters as he stays in touch with Vanellope over video chat, feeling content with his newfound ability to be independent.

Production

Development

In September 2012, Rich Moore said that there were already ideas for a sequel, and in March 2013, Moore said that he and Disney had ideas about a sequel that would bring the characters up to date and explore online gaming and console gaming. Moore stated that many of the crew and voice cast were open to the sequel, believing that they have "barely scratched the surface" of the video game world they envisioned. He also stated that he planned to include Tron in the sequel, which appears briefly in the film, where Ralph and Vanellope race at the beginning. In 2014, the first film's composer Henry Jackman said that a story for the sequel was being written.

In March 2016, Moore stated that a sequel was still being planned. In June 2016, Walt Disney Animation Studios announced that the sequel would be released on March 9, 2018, with Moore and Phil Johnston attached, and that its story would be one where "Ralph leaves the arcade and wrecks the Internet".

In March 2017, the sequel's title was officially announced as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2, with Moore returning as director joined by the first film's co-writer, Johnston, and Clark Spencer also returning as producer. In July 2018, Disney removed Wreck-It Ralph 2 from the film's title.

Writing

Two working versions of the script had been scrapped before settling on the one used for the film, according to head writer Josie Trinidad. In one version, Vanellope had become self-absorbed by the Internet, gaining popularity and becoming a celebrity among the users. Ralph had been thrown in jail where he met the search engine Knowsmore, and they had partnered together to escape prison and help bring Vanellope back to her normal self. A second version had Ralph becoming an Internet-famous celebrity and would have been challenged by an anti-virus program named Bev that served as a super cop and would have been the story's villain. Trinidad said neither of these versions captured what they felt was the centrepiece of the sequel, being how Ralph and Vanellope reacted to the new world of the Internet and realizing they have separate paths going forward.

Producer Clark Spencer said that "the film is about change. Two best friends are about to realize that the world won't always be the same. The internet is the perfect setting, really, because it's all about change—things change by the second".  Director of story Jim Reardon said that it was intimidating to set the film on the Internet, stating that "They looked at how they could make the internet relatable on a human level—like how Game Central Station aka the power strip mirrored a train station in the first movie." Reardon, however, said that Disney "didn't want to make the movie about the internet", instead focus on Ralph and Vanellope's friendship, and to treat the Internet as "the place where the movie takes place".  Josie Trinidad claimed that the filmmakers "didn't want to just give the audience more of that friendship — people had to see that relationship grow." 

The designs of scenes within the Internet were based on tours made of One Wilshire in Los Angeles, as it is one of the world's largest telecommunications centres. The filmmakers did not approach any of the companies (outside of Disney) that are represented on the Internet and strove to include net branding from all across the world. They also had to explore various Internet memes, making sure to avoid those that lacked long-term presence on the Internet. While the film addresses many positive elements of the Internet, the filmmakers did not want to shy away from covering some of the more unpleasant aspects about it, in part fueled by the success of tackling racism indirectly within Zootopia. They wanted to follow the same approach as they had with Judy Hopps in Zootopia, where she experienced, learned, and overcame the racism aspects, and have Ralph similarly learn and become a better person without having to actually solve the issue of hostility on the Internet.

The scene where Vanellope is introduced to the Disney Princesses came from screenwriter Pamela Ribon. In 2014, Ribon was still working on Moana when Disney began internally pitching ideas for the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, Ribon recognized that like the title character of Moana, Vanellope fits the definition of a Disney Princess. When work formally began on the sequel after the completion of Zootopia, Ribon pitched the idea of Disney poking fun at itself by having Vanellope meet the other Disney Princesses in the green room of OhMyDisney.com, the Disney fan-driven website. Further inspiration came from a BuzzFeed online quiz that asked which Disney Princess the user was; Moore thought it would be interesting if Ralph had encountered that quiz and ended up in an argument with Vanellope over the result. The script was written by Ribon, which she wanted to include the various tropes of the Princesses, with them making in the final cut for the film. Moore and Johnston were satisfied with the script.

Casting

Alan Tudyk returns to voice a different character, named KnowsMore. Tudyk previously voiced King Candy in the first film.

In July 2015, John C. Reilly said he had signed on to reprise his role of Ralph in a projected sequel. In March 2017, Jane Lynch, Jack McBrayer, and Sarah Silverman were reported as being set to reprise their roles. In December 2016, Alan Tudyk confirmed his return in the sequel as a different character, named KnowsMore, after previously voicing King Candy in the first film. In August 2018, actress Gal Gadot joined the cast as Shank. The production team on the film was able to secure all the Disney Princesses' original voice actresses, except for Adriana Caselotti as Snow White, Ilene Woods as Cinderella, and Mary Costa as Aurora, due to the formers having both died in 1997 and 2010 respectively, while the latter retired from acting in 2000. Jennifer Hale and Kate Higgins, the current voice actresses for Cinderella and Aurora, were hired for the film; Pamela Ribon, the film's co-screenwriter, performed Snow White's voice for temporary tracks, but the team considered it a good substitute, allowing Ribon to voice her in the final film.

Animation

The film contains over 150 unique sets and 5,726 assets, and includes the highest number of characters in any Disney Animation film, with 434 individual characters with 6,752 variants. One of the Disney animators who helped out to bring the Disney Princesses into CGI animation was Mark Henn, who was also the original supervising animator of princesses Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan, and Tiana. Henn also served as the supervising animator for the film's background hand-drawn animated characters. Animators had to work out various techniques to take the different styles of animation into a single approach, and figure out the proportions of the characters using official figurines.

In the initial trailer for the film, the African-American princess character Tiana appeared to have a lighter skin tone, a narrower nose, and more European features than she did in the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog. This led to some backlashes on social media as these drew her appearance away from that expected of African-Americans. As a result, Disney contacted Tiana's voice actress, Anika Noni Rose, and the advocacy group Colour of Change to redesign Tiana for Ralph Breaks the Internet to make sure she resembles more closely to her 2009 appearance; the updated character model was revealed in the second trailer. The same treatment was given to Pocahontas, the titular character of the 1995 film, as many viewers had pointed out that she was also given a much lighter skin tone.

A scene featured in the film's original teaser, released in March 2018, involving Ralph and Vanellope invading a children's game and feeding pancakes to a bunny to the point that it is implied to explode, was heavily discussed prior to the film's release; however, the scene was eventually cut from the film and instead placed halfway through the credits. The post-credits scene involves what starts as a teaser for Frozen II but cuts to Ralph rickrolling the audience by starting to sing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". While producers Spencer and Moore had an idea of Ralph doing a "Wreck Roll" early on in the film's development, they never incorporated it into the story. As it was one of the last scenes added, the producers had gotten Reilly, who was on vacation with his family at the time, to come into a New York City studio to record for the day so that the animators could work from that.

Music and Soundtrack

On September 19, 2018, Imagine Dragons released the lead single from the soundtrack titled "Zero", which plays during the end credits of the film. On October 23, 2018, the music video of "Zero" was posted on Imagine Dragons' YouTube channel. The film features an original song called "A Place Called Slaughter Race", performed by Sarah Silverman and Gal Gadot, written by Tom MacDougall and the film's co-director Phil Johnston, and composed by Alan Menken; the song's pop version, "In This Place", was performed by Julia Michaels. The film also features songs from various Disney Princess films, as well as Demi Lovato's cover of "Let it Go" played in the beginning of the Oh My Disney scene. Ralph also rickrolls the tune "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley in a post-credits scene. The soundtrack was composed by Henry Jackman, who also composed the score from the previous film. It was released digitally on November 16, 2018, and on CD on November 30, 2018.

Popular Culture Cameos and References

Similar to the first film, Ralph Breaks the Internet includes a number of cameos and references to video games and various Disney properties, including their own films, Pixar films, Star Wars, Marvel Comics, and The Muppets franchises. The band Imagine Dragons (whose song "Zero" is featured in a trailer for the film, as well as its soundtrack) make a cameo appearance in the film, with the members voicing themselves. The video game Fortnite Battle Royale is briefly shown, including the battle bus and the floss dance. Stan Lee, Marvel Comics' former writer, editor, and publisher, makes a cameo appearance in the film.

The filmmakers revealed that the film originally featured a joke about Kylo Ren being a "spoiled child", which was later cut from the film by request from Lucasfilm because it would undermine his role as a villain. Also cut from the film was C-3PO being mockingly called R2-D2 and BB-8 by the princesses. Additionally, the film would originally include The Golden Girls characters, but it was later cut because the directors felt it was a bizarre juxtaposition. The legion of Ralph clones, which forms a gigantic Ralph monster, resembles the King Kong character from various films. During production, the giant monster form was dubbed "Ralphzilla" after Godzilla.

Release/Reception/Box Office

Ralph Breaks the Internet premiered on November 5, 2018, at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. The film was originally scheduled for general release on March 9, but it was pushed back to November 21.Ralph Breaks the Internet was also released in IMAX and 3D formats.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of 274 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.3 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Ralph Breaks the Internet levels up on its predecessor with a funny, heartwarming sequel that expands its colourful universe while focusing on core characters and relationships." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 71 out of 100 based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, down from the "A" earned by the first film, and those at PostTrak gave the film four stars out of five.

Bilge Ebiri of The New York Times gave the film a positive review, saying that "somewhere amid the film's ornate imagery and deliriously irreverent humour, we might begin to realize that we're watching a terrifying, incisive satire about the ways that a life lived online makes monsters of us all". Brian Lowry of CNN said that "The colourful action should delight tykes, but the smart, media-savvy asides make it especially appealing to grownups". Kerry Lengel of The Arizona Republic gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of five, saying "what makes the movie compelling, despite the subdued dramatic payoff, is that it is a heightened reflection of our experience—our love affair, really—with our gadgets, our apps and, yes, our brands". Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film three stars out of four, stating that the film is "almost always inspired in the moment" and said that "the new characters are all pretty great", though he said that the film's first third "struggles to find its focus", and felt that Felix and Calhoun's subplot "would have worked better as a pre-movie animated short". Chris Bumbray of JoBlo's Movie Emporium said that the film "is just as solid" as the first film, and said it was compared to the science-fiction film Ready Player One. Bryan Bishop of The Verge described the film as "The Lego Movie of Disney films", stating that it "soars when it sends up the studio's own films, but its portrayal of the internet feels a little optimistic for 2018."

Oliver Jones of The New York Observer gave the film a two-and-a-half score, saying that "Ralph Breaks the Internet is a candy coated, hard shined brick of postmodernism—a Vitamix smoothie of gags, nostalgia, product placement and Fruity Pebbles". Alonso Duralde of TheWrap said that "Within a few years, the specifics of the viral-video gags in Ralph Breaks the Internet will be as dated as a Tay Zonday joke". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said that the "sequel to the 2012 film is somewhere between Ready Player One and The Emoji Movie, summoning up a zero-gravity spectacle of dazzling colours and vertiginous perspectives, a featureless and inert mashup of memes, brands, avatars, and jokes".

Ralph Breaks the Internet grossed $201.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $328.2 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $529.3 million, against a production budget of $175 million.

In the United States and Canada, Ralph Breaks the Internet was released alongside Creed II and Robin Hood, as well as the wide expansion of Green Book, and was originally projected to gross $67–77 million from 3,900+ theatres in its five-day opening weekend. The film made $18.3 million on its first day (including a pre-Thanksgiving record $3.8 million from Tuesday previews) and another $10.2 million on its second. It went on to debut to $55.7 million in its opening weekend (a five-day total of $84.5 million), finishing first at the box office and marking the second-best Thanksgiving opening behind Disney's Frozen ($93.6 million). In its second weekend the film made $25.8 million, dropping 54% but remaining in first. For the third weekend, it topped the box office once again with $16.1 million, dropping 37%. In its second and third weekends the film finished ahead of The Grinch, marking the first time where animated films reached the top two spots at the box office for two consecutive weekends.

Budget $175million

Box office $529.3million

My Review

While 2012's Wreck-It Ralph is far from Pixar's most accomplished achievement, it was a fun tale of friendship and nostalgia as our two lovable heroes romped their way through a variety of games, both modern and retro. Despite the appeal of its characters, the ending hardly cried out for a sequel, but the world created by Rich Moore and his team of animators offered endless possibilities with which the story could be taken. With demand for 80's and 90's nostalgia at an all-time high, you have to wonder why a sequel took a whole six years to arrive. While one of the main appeals of Wreck-It Ralph was seeing a bunch of familiar characters from your childhood weaved into the story and placed into everyday situations, this follow-up takes Ralph and best pal Vanellope out of their pixelated comfort-zone and into a brave new world of pop-up ads and nightmarish comment sections.

Of course, there's always money to be made on the internet if you know how, and with the help of Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), the algorithm at video site BuzzzTube, Ralph racks up the likes and hearts by becoming a viral sensation. Vanellope's friendship with Ralph is tested when she discovers dangerous open-world racing game Slaughter Race and finds a like-minded friend in bad-ass racer Shank (Gal Gadot). There's a message about the dangers of toxic friendships in there somewhere, but the sweet relationship developed more carefully the first time around is often drowned out by the sheer noise of this online world. There are many great ideas here, such as Alan Tudyk's KnowsMore, an search engine who is always over-eager to predict what you're going to say, and Bill Hader's J.P. Spamley, a click-bait pop-up ad who acts like a desperate, down-on-his-luck salesman. A detour into a Disney fan-site initially reeks of self-promotion, but the company sends itself up rather well, conjuring up an inspired moment involving the entire roster of Disney princesses. Ralph Breaks the Internet is fun and packed with creativity, but struggles to find its heart amidst all the eye-catching chaos.

Easily the hallmark of this film is all the clever Net references that it makes, whether being sight gags or outright jokes. Good-natured fun is poked at social media, massive Internet businesses, and Disney, to name a few sources. All these gags will elicit at least a chuckle from most audiences, and there are enough of them to keep that good-humour mode intact all the way through.

The problem here, though, is this: How many times can a single franchise "go to the well" of Internet/gaming references in lieu of other more interesting material. I know that Disney/Pixar has set the bar almost impossibly high in terms of making animated movies that both children and adults can adore, but in terms of characters/emotions this "Ralph" effort fails to even approach it. They lean into the jokes, great, but seemingly at the expense of crafting really meaningful character scenarios (something I would argue the first "Ralph" did a much better job of accomplishing).

At the end of the day, though, I'd call Ralph Breaks the Internet and its predecessor about even in terms of overall enjoyment. This one takes more of a sight-gag approach, or going for the "cheap chuckles" (though legit chuckles nonetheless, for the most part) approach. If this franchise continues (and presumably concludes) as a trilogy, I would like to see a more even melding of character/humour in the third film, something this franchise hasn't quite accomplished yet. 8.2/10

{I liked Imagine Dragons before I watched this film, but 'Zero' is the song that convinced me to buy their albums}