Review of Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) by Carlotta 4 — 04 Dec 2018

I was so FRUSTRATED by this film. It's okay at best, and the beats aren't necessarily bad but they don't flow together and character decisions seem required by plot rather than something that character would really do--Vanellope spent the entire last film just wanting to be a racer more than anything else and in this film she's already bored of it. Ralph just wants to hang out constantly and basically implies he wouldn't mind if his game went down when in last movie his game being imminently shut down clearly upset him because he had ruined so many lives by doing so.

And as for the internet? Nothing interesting is done with it. The movie sticks to the most obvious of jokes: people watch cat videos, people make mean comments in youtube, etc--if you've spent any time on the internet or around media in general you've aready HEARD these jokes a million times. The plot basically focuses on Ralph purposefully making inane Youtube videos. Do they really think we want to see old and overdone memes instead of these characters? I would have easily traded that Google joke I've seen a billion times for Sgt. Challagan (however you spell that) doing a "take your kids to work day" or even just V. and Ralph interacting more in meaningful ways. SHOW Ralph being clingy (in the current format it's too easily mistaken for concern for her welbeing since they're in such a strange place), SHOW V. yearning for Slaughter Race (in a non-song format, having only one musical number in the entire film is a horrible pace shift). But the film seems to think that Ralph getting Youtube likes was more important, it seems to think Princesses making fun of Princess tropes is more important... by the time they DO try to do a meaningful character arc and climax with our characters it's hard to get invested because the film up to this point hadn't been promoting it.

The original film felt like an omage to games but it did so with entirely new characters and locations. Refreshing and fun! But this film just felt like old jokes and straight up references, a film that just "happened" to have Ralph and V in it, not one focusing on them..