Disney's ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet' Levels Up as a Sequel

"Ralph Breaks the Internet" is expected to set records for Thanksgiving weekend.

What to Know

  • Fandago estimates it will make $70 opening weekend.
  • Director Rich Moore also directed the original.
  • The film opens Nov. 21st.

Not every movie in Hollywood needs a sequel. But fans will certainly be glad Disney plugged into what audiences like and made a sequel to the 2012 hit, "Wreck-It Ralph." What they came up with is a pure cyberspace joy to watch in "Ralph Breaks the Internet."

"Ralph Breaks the Internet" welcomes back to the big screen video-game bad guy Ralph and fellow misfit Vanellope von Schweetz. Rather than taking the obvious route of exploring other games in the arcade, the creators went global. They are tackling the entire World Wide Web, leaving Litwak's video game arcade behind.

The Internet looks a lot like a metropolitan city, with large familiar apps, slogans and web references that kids, but mostly adults, will enjoy. The web is a daunting place for most people to navigate, and it's fun to watch Ralph and Vanellope discover things like eBay, and spam ads. Everything from Google headquarters to popular online video games have been carefully imagined to resonate with a wide audience, but still feel familiar to someone who isn't a gamer or regular web user.

At its heart, "Ralph Breaks the Internet" is about friendship. Since we last saw them, Ralph and Vanellope have been entrenched in their routine of playing their games by day, and hanging out having fun at night. But a mishap forces them to leave their comfortable games and head out into the Internet.

On the web, their friendship is tested and we really get a chance to see what these characters are made of.

"Ralph and Vanellope are imperfect characters," says Academy Award-winning director Rich Moore ("Zootopia"), who directed the original film. "But we love them because of their flaws. Their friendship is so genuine--the chemistry between them so engaging--that I think we were all anxious to know more about these characters."

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One scene in particular that audiences will love is when Vanellope has girl time with the other Disney princesses. Vanellope is also a princess in her video game, and the Disney universe, but she definitely goes against the princess archetype. Kudos to Disney for the laugh-out-loud self-deprecating humor here.

Are most sequels necessary? Not at all. But with Fandango reporting RBTI is outselling previous Thanksgiving hits like Moana and COCO, it seems like audiences are already plugged in to this next adventure with Ralph and Vanellope.

The film was directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston and stars John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, and Gal Gadot. It opens nationwide Nov. 21.

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