Ralph Breaks My Heart

Student reviews new film “Ralph Breaks the Internet”

Ralph Breaks the Internet, the sequel to the highly acclaimed animated Disney movie, Wreck-It Ralph, shows an arcade game villain, Wreck-It Ralph, travel to the internet with his racing character best-friend, Vanellope von Schweetz. The duo breaks a lot more than just the internet, with one example being my heart.

Before I continue, I need to make sure it’s clear that Ralph is NOT a villain, but his job in the game “Fix-it Felix, Jr.” is to act like one. He isn’t an evil person at all, but he does do some pretty bad things in this movie while cracking under pressure. Ralph is a very disastrous guy because that’s how he was made to be, but most of all, he is self-destructive. Under all of his big, goofy, heartwarming qualities, he’s very insecure.

There are plenty of challenges in this movie, like trolls and random eBay bidders, or the dark web, but the biggest challenge explored in this movie is codependency. Ralph wants to spend every single second of the day he isn’t at his job with his best friend, Vanellope, but she wants to hang out with her other friends or be alone every once in a while. She feels like Ralph is always saving her and that she needs to learn how to save herself. She finds new things to do without Ralph, and he becomes jealous and tries to wreck it all for her. This movie is about overcoming the codependency he feels so there is no more wreckage, other than in his own game.

A big thing that struck me in this movie was the little things within the animation style, how laggy the characters from 8-bit games move, how smoothly the things in the internet move. They did these things in the first movie, I probably noticed it more in this one because in all of the new places they explored, there were just more things to notice. The creators developed this video game universe so much more than the first film. They introduced Grand Theft Auto-esque games, Youtube-like websites and a Disney Princess hideout, which really made the whole “Wreck-It Ralph” world feel a lot bigger.

The voices in this film were incredible, Sarah Silverman as Vanellope is one that really stood out to me. She’s a 48-year-old woman speaking as a 12-year-old girl, and she got it all right, especially the voice crack and not so good singing. There was one character, J.P. Spamley, who I really thought was being voiced by Pete Davidson because he looked just like him, but it turned out to be Bill Hader. He sounded nothing like Bill Hader, so I just have to give props to him for that.

This was a very beautiful movie, from the colors and flashy images right down to the emotional core. It’s a funny and relatively sad look at how all relationships, whether with friends or loved ones, eventually reach a point where things need to change, for better or for worse. There’s plenty of action, too. The whole third-act is huge action fueled by deep emotion, and it’s awesome. I found this sequel to be better than its predecessor, unlike far too many. Ralph Breaks the Internet is an A+ movie, and definitely in my list of top five movies this year.