Return of lunkhead ‘Ralph’ is pure Disney
Brian Truitt: Sequel matches the first film’s charm, ratchets up the emotions
Six years after the title video-game bad guy of “Wreck-It Ralph” went on an epic hero’s journey, he goes viral in a Disney animated sequel that matches the first film’s charm, ratchets up the emotions but lacks the same originality.
Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is as much a lovable lunkhead as ever in “Ralph Breaks the Internet” ( ★★★☆; rated PG; in theaters Nov. 21), yet the follow-up centers on best friend, Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), realizing her dreams.
Times are just peachy at Litwak’s Arcade for Ralph and his 8-bit friends, though they’re a bit too fine for young Vanellope. She has grown bored being the resident princess of her game “Sugar Rush” and yearns for something new.
Ralph takes that as her needing some improvement in her game to fulfill her need for speed, but his intervention leads to the wheel breaking on the “Sugar Rush” machine. The good news: Litwak’s has just gotten Wi-Fi, so Ralph and Vanellope head into cyberspace to track down a replacement part on eBay.
Being video game characters, they don’t have any money, which leads them to the shady world of J.P. Spamley (Bill Hader) and click bait clickbait for cash. High jinks ensue across the web from there: Vanellope falls in love with the online game “Slaughter Race” while Ralph, who’s as disconcerted by the Internet as she’s inspired, learns the power of “likes” and cat videos with trendy guru Yesss (Taraji P. Henson).
But our heroic duo’s relationship is really tested when their individual goals veer from each other’s and Ralph struggles to let Vanellope spread her digital wings. The movie speaks to any mom and dad who’ve weathered conflicting feelings about their kids going to kindergarten, high school, college – and to anyone who has ever been flummoxed by the World Wide Web, which is pretty much everybody.
Any popular meme or viral hit you can imagine is sent up by directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston in this busy cyber-landscape. There’s almost too much to watch in one viewing, but their takes on social media and online living tend to be pretty clever on the whole.
The dark web is a seedy underworld where dangerous viruses are born. The coolest place definitely is “Slaughter Race,” a “Mad Max”-meets-“Grand Theft Auto” post-apocalypse where
Vanellope meets her new idol, streetracing ace Shank (Gal Gadot with a surprisingly hefty part).
As up-to-date and modern as the new “Ralph” is, it leans old-school Disney. (Fun fact: It’s the first featurelength theatrical sequel from the animation studio since “Fantasia 2000” 18 years ago.) And the movie embraces everything about the House of Mouse: There’s a whole sequence where Vanellope sees Iron Man and gets chased by Stormtroopers in an area that’s a little too “We own your childhoods!”
At least the filmmakers know how to do it right, because it leads to two of the most entertaining sequences in the film. Vanellope runs into the entire bevy of other Disney princesses and teaches them the positive points of comfortable clothing, and the meeting sets her on a path to embracing her identity. Vanellope even gets her own “I want” song, a tune by Alan Menken called “A Place Called Slaughter Race” that embraces both the princess factor and the usual goofy “Ralph” humor.
You’ll LOL, you’ll cry-emoji, you’ll never look at a pop-up ad the same way again. And while the new “Ralph” falls short of the original’s brilliance, any adventure with the big oaf and his glitchy BFF is #winning.