November 9, 2018 3 min to read

Ralph Breaks the Internet

When an emotional conflict leads the Vanellope into an irrelevant fifteen minute meeting with every disney princess - you have to wonder why Disney is choosing to insult our intelligence so brazenly.

by Zach Saul

Ralph (John C. Reily) and Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) are video game characters living inside an arcade and come to life inside and out of their games each day when Litwak’s doors open. Vanellope begrudgingly admits to Ralph that she’s been feeling bored with her game Sugar Rush. In an attempt to cheer up his best friend, Ralph enters her game and builds her a secret track during one of her races. Vanellope loves the new track, but it frustrates the real life game user who breaks the steering wheel - causing Litwak to unplug the game. To save Sugar Rush, Ralph and Vanellope enter the new wifi router and get transported inside the internet. The pair successfully win the bid for the sugar Rush steering wheel, but are forced to come up with 20k of risk losing the item. Along the way Vanellope and Ralph attempt to steal a car from a character named Shank (Gal Gadot), and Vanellope falls in love with the lawlessness and excitement of Slaughter Race. Ralph, who spends most of the movie grappling with his own insecurities decides to insert a virus into the game to convince Vanellope her new life isn’t as great as she thought but unwittingly unleashes a virus that threatens to destroy the entire internet.

Ralph Breaks the Internet has a premise with serious potential, but sadly squanders it in favor of a loud crichendo and aggressive product placement. Ralphs inner-struggle with his lifelong friend wanting to leave is actually quite interesting. This should have been the central focus of the movie, and lead to an insightful exploration of insecurity. Self-esteem is a problem that’s deeply relevant to both millenials and gen-z. But only Vanellope’s restlessness is explored with any nuance and care. Ralph Breaks the Internet felt to me like it passed judgment on Ralph’s behavior without answering the far more interesting, and relevant question of why his insecure episodes were persisting. I don’t imagine Vanellope, was thrilled when Ralph excitedly tells her how she’d spend the rest of eternity - drinking beer with him and hanging around the arcade without asking what she wanted. Ralph’s relationship with Vanellope carries an oddly paternal energy (which i’m sure was intentional) and it creates an imbalance between the two characters. The imbalance is never fully explored but I have to imagine Vanellope’s apprehensions stemmed from Ralph’s instistance they define their future together.

The time disney could have spent exploring the mature themes of the film they instead filled with product placement. The shortcomings in character development made the product placements in Ralph Breaks the Internet particularly problematic/offensive to me. Rich Moore and Phil Johnson depicted the “internet world” quite cleverly - but their insertion of Disney princesses, groot, storm troopers, eBay and Snapchat were distracting and disorienting - and made me question the rules of their new world instead of invest in their two characters. When a promising conflict leads the main character into an irrelevant fifteen minute meeting with every disney princess - you have to wonder why Disney is choosing to insult our intelligence so brazenly.

The Good: The emotional themes in Ralph Breaks the Internet are interesting and filled with potential. Vanellope’s character arc is nicely developed, and Shank (Gal Gadot) serves as an interesting role model who doesn’t just hit the same four chords most children’s movies do. The “internet world” is built really cleverly - and manny of the gags about gamers, search engines, and viruses are excellent.

The Bad: Ralph Breaks the Internet has the stench of a good movie that got corrupted by suits at the eleventh hour. The mature themes are successful at times but ultimately watered down, and the product placement throughout went way overboard. When eBay, Snapchat and BuzzTube exist in the same universe it’s painfully obvious that some of those companies paid Disney for mentions and others didn’t.