Disney's tech-skewering 3D-animation series, Wreck-It Ralph, leans into a misleading subtitle for its first motion-picture sequel: Ralph Breaks the Internet. Figuratively, this film does nothing that equates to the "Internet-breaking" event that was Kim Kardashian-West's exposed rear end, and it doesn't turn in a best-in-class satire of Internet culture (either from a superficial level or a tech-savvy one).

That's fine. 2013's Wreck-It Ralph was in a similar boat: it looked like a gigantic gaming-satire feature at first, yet in the end, it focused on something arguably more important: a sweet-yet-weird take on friendship, complete with likable, fleshed-out characters.

The same applies with its sequel. What's more, with a core friendship established by the source film, this sequel takes some really killer risks (at least, for a family-friendly cartoon) in exploring friendship and villainy in ways that viewers likely won't see coming. You may not cry while watching this film, but in between its riotous laughs, Wreck-It Ralph 2 pulls some clever, unique, and touching heartstrings that other Disney films haven't done in a while.

What’d Ralph wreck this time?

Six years have passed since the events of Wreck-It Ralph, and many of that film's licensed video game characters have quietly vanished. (Sonic the Hedgehog, Q-Bert, the Tapper bartender, and a few Street Fighter characters have hung on to enjoy a few brief, funny cameos.) The original film's arcade is still pulling customers, and Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is still loving his predictable life: play the bad guy in the fictional arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr. by day, then hang out with best friend Vanellope (voiced by Sarah Silverman) at night.













Over this span of time, Vanellope has grown disenchanted with the same-ol', same-ol', and Ralph tries to fix her unhappiness by invading her racing video game. It may not come as a surprise that a guy with "Wreck-It" in his name gets this wrong. Long story short, Vanellope's life as a game character is now in peril, and the only solution involves some new-fangled invention called the Internet.

The worst thing about WIR2 is how long the film takes to get us "online." One early plot line about Felix (voiced by Jack McBrayer) whizzes by so quickly that I wonder whether that chunk was originally longer—and thus edited to speed the film along. As soon as Ralph and Vanellope find a Wi-Fi router, jump into a pod-shaped "packet," and physically zip through a series of tubes (LOL) to leave the arcade behind, the film upgrades to Gigabit speed.

WIR2's "Internet" is full of block-shaped avatars who represent real-life users, and they can be seen physically walking up to kiosks to recreate common Internet activities. The primary "search engine" is a Jeeves-like, glasses-wearing avatar, voiced by Alan Tudyk. eBay is a seemingly endless auction house that looks like a Costco gone wild. "Ask me anything" sessions with celebrities look straight out of Comic Con.

The visual gags that come with these Internet-to-real-life stagings are mostly mild, though a few had me howling. Many of the gags win less because of humor and more because of attention to detail. A personal favorite comes during a massively multiplayer online game, in which avatars strafe-walk in awkwardly straight lines, stutter with apparent lag, and hop for no reason. It's terribly cute in action. (The film's funniest scene-stealers include Bill Hader as a shady spam salesman and Alfred Molina as a grotesque virus peddler.)

Missed onion opportunity

By the same token, you'll come away disappointed if you're eager for perfect Internet send-ups. A few scenes include blink-and-you'll-miss-them gags about proper Internet infrastructure, but most of the jokes are surface-level stuff. Twitter is simply a tree full of blue birds. The Dark Web looks like a generic, unkempt slum. (What, not even some anthropomorphized onions?)

Yet the biggest showcase sequences are utter eye candy, and their visual gags stand on their own—or drive hilarious repartee. The film's MMO world, Slaughter Race, is already a violent, goofy blast in an early, Fast & Furious-style driving montage. (That world's main character, a tough-as-nails street racer voiced by Wonder Woman's Gal Gadot, is a sharp addition, as snappy as she is heartfelt.) Later, this MMO world becomes even more memorable by hosting a hilarious ballad that sends up Disney's sad-song tropes as much as it sweetly embraces them.

Speaking of Disney: let's just say the House of Mouse has a notable presence in WIR2's version of the Internet. The result has me eager to get a Blu-ray copy and savor its sight-gag density.

None of that stuff matters without the huge, beating heart of friendship that powers the film's best moments. Within the Internet, Ralph and Vanellope have to square away a painful reality: how friendships inevitably change when life goals diverge. We see both characters explode with hope and possibility when they make their way through the Internet—but both also worry about what they may lose in their "best" friendship as a result.

Speaking of onions, someone's chopping them









The Disney cartoon universe doesn't often host these kinds of boy-and-girl stories, and it has never nailed one as sweet and vulnerable as this one. The film's emotional climax (which is easily spoiled, so I'll be vague) is unique within Disney canon and forces both main characters to figuratively stare each other down in intense, teary-eyed fashion.

This quality, combined with WIR2's action-packed, wide-eyed set pieces, made me think a lot about the film adaptation of Ready Player One—and its utter failures. That story stuck a hollow romance and rushed emotional development onto its leads, and its cheap-looking CGI sequences didn't help. I scowled at Ready Player One, yet I howled, swooned, and teared up over the combined visual and emotional impact of Wreck-It Ralph 2.

This is the cartoon-nerd story I've always wanted: one about kids discovering a dazzling, virtual world before learning surprising, even troubling things about themselves in the process. Midway through the film, Vanellope talks about the Slaughter Race world in a sentence that might sound simple out of context: "[This place] is full of weirdos, and it's dangerous, and you never know what's going to happen next." This, to her, is an awesome quality, not a bad one.

And that simple declaration gets to the heart of why the average nerd explores new things—and, quite honestly, got me choked up thinking about the first time I ever stepped foot into the brave, strange, and wonderful Internet. This is a cartoon by nerds, for nerds, and I cannot recommend it enough for a family Thanksgiving viewing.