Advice: stay until the end of the credits!
(Photo)
The second installment of Wreck-It Ralph is stunning. It is packed full of laughs and tearful moments as Ralph (John C Reilly) nearly breaks the internet (in more ways than one!) when he embarks on an epic journey into the heart of the internet, joined by his best friend Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman).
Set 6 years after the original 2012 film, Vanellope finds herself bored with the predictability of life and her game (Sugar Rush). Ralph decides to shake things up a little and dig out a new track for her to race. However, Vanellope gets a little too carried away and overriding the player controls resulting in the steering wheel to the game getting wrecked. Mr. Litwak (Ed O’Neill), passes on the idea of buying the $200 replacement from e-Bay and shut off the game leaving all its characters homeless. Determined to save the game, the duo venture into the newly plugged in “wiffy?” “wyfee?” – the wifi and take a trip into the internet.
(Photo)
Disney’s representation of the internet is an explosion of pop-culture. The skyline is a visually beautiful representation of our online world and is dotted with famous companies such as Amazon, snapchat and Google. Disney did not fail to include all the elements of the internet we both love and hate. On their adventure, Vanellope and her hero (watch the first movie) are sidetracked by clickbait, harassed by pop-ups, meet Knowsmore (Alan Tudyk) with his aggressive auto prediction, and gets carried away in an eBay bidding war. They visit the dark web, find themselves in the game Slaughter Race (Disney’s take on Grand Theft Auto) and go viral in a series of videos.
My only concern for the movie is that the sheer focus on today’s pop culture will essentially lose all meaning as we move through time and different things become important to us. When the duo visit ‘Buzzztube’, they meet head algorithm Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), and make a series of (now) hilarious viral videos to make money to pay off their outrageously high bid on eBay. The multitude of pop-culture references littered throughout the movie, from Ralph flossing and being dubbed as the ‘leafblower’ guy are perhaps at risk of not being loved by future generations when we as parents put a movie on for them. But perhaps that’s the beauty of it, they won’t necessarily understand what is going on (and to be honest, I don’t understand the internet half of the time), but they’ll be able to learn about the online world which characterises our daily lives.
(Photo)
For me, despite the entire movie exceeding my already very high expectations, the best moment was for sure was when Vanellope visits O My Disney. This is because she glitches into the Disney princesses’ green room. Seeing the princesses in their o-so-comfy loungewear and watching them poke fun at their characters and respective movies just made me grin ear to ear. It was perfect. That’s without mentioning the Stormtrooper encounter! Maybe it’s because I’m a die-hard Disney fan and it simply made my heart melt. Either way, this film is absolutely perfect if you’re looking for some light-hearted laughs, or emotional reconciliations.