Wreck It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet is in a word: Passable. It’s a fine film, but ultimately doesn’t live up to the standards set not only by Disney movies in general but by the concepts put forth in the original film.

  Ralph Breaks the Internet was shaping up to be a fun family movie with laughs and gags for everyone to enjoy, and it was. The problem, however is that it wasn’t anything more than that, the acting was fine, the animation was fine and the jokes were fine, but it really doesn’t do anything new or bold and I guess that’s my real problem with it.

  In this day and age I would have preferred to see something a bit more stimulating than another popcorn muncher where you turn off your brain for 2 hours and enjoy it. Ultimately this film is good, but that’s it, it’s just good, and I suppose that’s why it’s disappointing. The original Wreck It Ralph was one of my favourite movies of 2012 and was easily one of the best animated movies put out by Disney in a while, the jokes were fresh, the puns were good, the references to video game culture were set up well, but in Ralph Breaks the Internet, we really don’t get that, we get something so incredibly average and harmless instead, it doesn’t challenge anything and it doesn’t really do anything exciting.

  However one place in particular that Ralph Breaks the internet does shine is its character development. One of the major plot points and themes of the film is the issues with codependency and unhealthy boundaries and relationships, which is a really deep and important topic that isn’t often touched upon in media, let alone children’s media.

The only issue is they didn’t touch on it enough, they spend so much time making references to Fortnite and Ebay they really have to squeeze in all of the genuinely emotional parts of the film to the end of it, which kind of feels lackluster.

Over all this film is a harmless and fun movie, it will be enjoyed by basically anyone, it won’t go down as a terrible bomb of a film, but it also won’t receive high praise like its predecessor. I give this film a B-, it’s good, but not what it could have been.