SIX years is a long time between movie sequels.
It was a seven-year gap between “Alien” (1979) and “Aliens” (1986) so six years between “Wreck It Ralph” (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature) and this new sequel/continuation of the nine-foot tall, 600-lbs. misshapen Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is barely short enough to keep people interested in the storyline.
If you missed the first movie that pulled in a cool $471 million back in 2012, Ralph and a myriad of computer creatures inhabit a world within a power cord that keeps all of them “alive.”
In actuality, Ralph exists inside a time-worn computer game run by an equally decrepit Mr. Litwak (Ed O’Neill) who is creepy as spit when he is “shown” standing around little 12-year-old girls.
Totally weirded me out, man!
So when kids plop down their US quarters (P13) to play a game first launched back in 1983, “Wreck it Ralph,” that game world actually comes alive with its own cast of characters coming to “life” at the beck and call of the “gamer.”
Back then, the official synopsis read: “A video game villain (Ralph) wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfill his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives.”
To get ready to watch a preview showing of this next film “Ralph Breaks the Internet” (courtesy of the good folks at SM Seaside), I downloaded and watched the first film, in which Ralph and his new BFF Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) beat up the bad guy and save her game from disconnection.
Vanellope is also known (says the official Disney website) as “The Glitch,” a pixelating programming mistake in the candy-coated cart-racing game Sugar Rush.
Okay, with all of that background out of the way, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” starts with one of the loveable, pre-puberty teens in the game center, having a computer fit and snaps off the driving wheel that controls the Sugar Rush game.
With a replacement nearly impossible to find in the terrestrial world, Ralph and Vanellope high tail it onto the information superhighway and in a flash are jetting off into the Internet in search of a replacement.
They end up at the fictional world of E-Bay and stupidly bet tens of thousands of USD for a replacement driving wheel.
Of course, being computer characters and having no understanding of modern currency, the pair then begin a lunatic quest to generate “real money” in our terrestrial world (more than US$32,000) before the self-imposed deadline by E-Bay kills any chances of getting the replacement shipped to Mr. Litwak, thus saving Vanellope from certain doom.
Geez, what a stupid premise and what an equally stupid film.
I winced every moment that this diminutive Vanellope was on the screen, mostly because I despise Sarah Silverman and her gawawul “holier than thou” political views back in America.
Her gravelly voice is akin to cats mating—or worse (if there is)—nails being dragged across a chalkboard.
Most of “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is boring and a complete waste of time.
Set “scenes” are contrived as is the introduction of Gal Gadot (“Wonder Woman”) as the uber butch Shank who leads her own gang of ruthless cutthroats which, for some unknown reason, take a liking to Vanellope who then abandons her own stand-alone computer game in the real world (remember Sugar Rush?) to join up with this group of murders.
Worse yet, Ralph is convinced he is completely worthless and a computer virus he had let loose in Shank’s game to win over Vanellope’s favor—multiplies him into the millions and gels together into one massive creature (i.e. Sandman in 2007’s “Spider-Man 3”) starts toppling one “high rise” after another within the Internet, setting the global Internet a blaze.
Goodness is this stupid or what?
There is only one—yes ONE—funny set-up scene in which Vanellope is sucked into a super-secret room—more like a sheik’s private harem that is inhabited by each of the virginal princesses from every Disney cartoon movie.
I actually thought it was cute seeing the Disney princesses together in one scene until I listened closely to the dialogue from screenwriters Phil Johnston and Pamela Ribon where each princesses share their personal hatred of all men.
What?!
Johnston and Rich Moore were the “directors” of this 112-minute cartoon.
Moore oversaw the first “Ralph” film on his own and together they bring nothing—not even slapstick comedy—to what could have been an exciting journey into exploitation.
Instead “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is a “milk money” chase about a physical steering wheel for a computer game and there is not one THING about the Internet and the incredible information tool it has become.
I hated this movie in a way printed words cannot do justice.
Don’t ya just love those positive “values” that Disney force feeds every child and likewise parents who are dragged into sitting for this tripe?
As the father of three youngsters who are the exact age that Disney markets their propaganda, I loathe what the “House of Mouse” has become—a cynical money machine that has an open maw the size of Texas to suck in the minds of every innocent young child.
Shame on you Disney for even considering releasing this film!
Six years is far too short a time for the release of yet another “sequel” of “Wreck it Ralph.”
Questions, comments or travel suggestions, write me at theruffolos@readingruffolos.com.