Ralph Breaks the Internet poster

“Great, but can you make it a little more challenging this time?”

Vanellope

The problem with a sequel to a movie in which the main characters had substantial character arcs is that there is often nowhere left to go. At the end of the previous film, Ralph and Vanellope had both made peace with their roles in their respective game worlds. This time round, Ralph seeks only to maintain the status quo while Vanellope wants to explore the wider world of the Internet. The result is a story about friends growing apart and how friendships can still be maintained through tumultuous changes if people are honest and supportive of one another’s feelings. For children who have grown a few years since the first movie, this may be a useful message. Parents, however, are likely to find considerably less nostalgic humour in the film’s visual representation of the Internet than in Wreck-It Ralph‘s take on the heyday of arcade games. The strongest scenes still occur when John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman are able to bounce off one another (unusually they recorded their lines together) but their effectiveness is constrained as Ralph and Vanellope spend large portions of the sequel apart.

7/10