BEFORE: I don't know how else to describe my process for movie selection, other than to say that it's a bit like a jigsaw puzzle - when I start the year all the pieces are laid out in front of me (it's actually more confusing than a commercial jigsaw puzzle, because some of those pieces aren't going to fit at all, and belong to the NEXT puzzle, and some necessary pieces aren't even in the pile yet, but let's work with this metaphor, because it's all I have...). I'll start with an important corner piece, as one should, and then the February romance chain is like a whole side piece that's already put together right out of the box, which is a big help. Slowly over the spring and summer the puzzle comes together, and then once the October horror chain came into focus, I realized that I had a great view of what the final picture was going to be. So I'm at the stage of the puzzle-solving where there are just four little holes left, and four pieces left to fit into them, and I can see exactly where everything needs to end up, I just have to go through the motions and fit them in, one by one. Then next week I can step back and take a look at the whole puzzle and review that, just my way of saying, "Whoa, that was a lot of work, but it's done. Now clear this puzzle out of here so I can start solving the next one."
I'm catching this film on Netflix in what I assume to be the end of its run there, for sure when that licensing term runs out this film will migrate over to Disney Plus - I was covered either way because I got my free year of that service starting in November, so I could catch "The Mandalorian" and those Marvel TV shows, assuming they get made and premiere early next year.
Anthony Daniels carries over from "Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker", to voice the same character, C3P0, in animated form here.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Wreck-It Ralph" (Movie #1,609)
THE PLOT: Ralph and Vanellope, now friends, discover a wi-fi router in their arcade, leading them into a new adventure.
AFTER: I was apprehensive for a long time about watching this film, because of two scenes from the films preview (you may call it a "trailer", but really, it's a preview because it comes BEFORE the movie you paid to see, they no longer "trail" after.). The first was the glimpse of Vanellope somehow ending up in a room containing all of the Disney princesses (more on that in just a bit) and the other was a scene with Ralph and Vanellope doing some kind of internet search for a place that's "super-intense and fun" on the internet, and being told that there's "EXACTLY one place to go for that", and that turns out to be Disney.com, of course. By extension, I was therefore afraid that "Ralph Breaks the Internet" was just going to be one giant commercial for the Disney brand, and the story would therefore just be 90 minutes of Disney Corp metaphorically fellating itself in front of a captive audience.
Look, I get it, the internet is still like the Wild West in many ways, you can still say or do just about anything there without worrying about being fact-checked or held accountable, plus there's click-bait, spam, internet scams, phishing, identity theft, other forms of fraud, and that's not even taking into account the Dark Web or how few clicks you are from porn at any given moment. And now we're going to set a KID'S MOVIE in that location? And all at a time when we should be encouraging kids to spend LESS time on their devices, and not more? Sure, by all means, let's sugar-coat the internet experience so kids can't wait to explore it, what a terrible idea. Geezus, I set out to hold Disney to task in the last paragraph for claiming they were the only fun AND safe site on the web, and now I'm practically agreeing with them on that point in this one.
But wouldn't you know, that scene where Ralph and his little friend are told that there's "just one safe place to go on the internet" is no longer in the film, so I wonder what happened. Was it a scene made just for the trailer? Did someone realize that it sounded too much like self-promotion, and suggest that it be removed from the final film? Or was it a simple editing thing, like they tried a couple different approaches for that scene and just landed on a different one for the final cut? A glimpse at the "Trivia" Section on the film's IMDB page reveals that the original plan was to have this film's characters visit the web-site for the videogame "Disney Infinity" (I recall having to buy several Disney figures for my niece and nephew, which also unlocked characters for their copy of that game) but during production that game series was cancelled, so then changes had to be made to this film's script.
During the closing credits of the film, there's a scene where a little girl in a car is complaining to her mother about how the film they just saw didn't include one of the scenes from the internet trailer - so how's that for an in-joke? Though I don't think little kids in car seats are usually that hyper-aware of every single shot seen in a promo clip, I thought that was just my childhood. I think there was also a second scene from this film's preview, a discussion over whether Ralph would "wreck" the internet with his popularity as opposed to "breaking" it - that scene didn't make the final cut either, apparently.
But there are still all kinds of terrible ideas here, from telling kids that there IS such a thing as the dark web, implying that internet "likes" can somehow be converted to cold hard cash, and showing characters bidding on an eBay auction without understanding how money works. (This could encourage kids to go there and bid ridiculous sums of money that they don't have for every little thing they want...) And in many ways, this is still Disney Corp just showing off, since they have the legal rights to use all those princesses PLUS Marvel heroes PLUS Star Wars characters in the same film. It feels a bit like Disney's version of "The Lego Movie", or perhaps "Ready Player One", which had everything from Mecha-Godzilla to the Iron Giant to the car from "Back to the Future" in it. So really, Disney got scooped and was a little bit behind the curve on this one, since mega-franchise films with collections of characters from all over already existed. (But then again, they released the first one of its kind, which was "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", back in 1988.) Yeah, I kind of wish I could just watch a film and enjoy it for what it is, and not also try to figure out what its proper place is in the big pantheon of movies, but I guess that ship sailed long ago.
Still, I feel the need to try - because this SHOULD have just been the story about two video-game characters who leave their games, and their whole arcade, on a quest to find a replacement piece for a video-game console so that the "Sugar Rush" game won't be permanently unplugged, leaving its characters homeless. Like the toys in the "Toy Story" franchise, Wreck-It Ralph and Vanellope are two characters who have to follow the rules, like they can only interact with each other and visit other video-games when the arcade is closed, and they can't ever let humans know that they have consciousness and free will and can DO things and FEEL emotions. Because humans have not yet created A.I. life with those things, and suggesting that such things are possible would blow our little minds, or something. But then once they leave the arcade and hit the internet, they start interacting with avatars, each one representing a human in the real world, and that's oddly a little too close to breaking the rules. In the virtual world, however, it's almost like the video-game characters are the smart ones who learn how to manipulate the system, while the avatars represent the mindless humans (sheeple) who follow clickbait and distribute their likes willy-nilly and leave hurtful comments on videos. This may be somewhat accurate, but it also hits way too close to home.
How come we've had the internet for 20 years and this is the FIRST studio film to use that word in a title? Why is this the first major film set there, except for "The Emoji Movie"? Why does it seem like the Disney storytellers only JUST learned about wi-fi and internet videos and memes - or is it the studio executives who've been using the interwebs as a promotional tool since day one, but never realized the storytelling potential of it? For too many years the future has looked like "The Matrix" or more recently "Ready Player One", but did everyone forget that the virtual world of tomorrow starts with the online world of TODAY? I've got so many questions...
But let's get back to those Disney princesses, because that seems to be why many people came here in the first place. Even if we discount the dissonance of having native characters like Pocahontas and Moana, and also fairy-tale characters like Cinderella and Snow White (from when, medieval times? The 1500's?) appearing in an internet-based setting, they've got all of these princesses in some kind of green room or holding room, just waiting to take place in some kind of "Which Disney Princess Are You Most Like?" quiz. Umm, isn't there a fine line between being held prisoner in a castle tower, and being held virtually behind the scenes at Oh-My-Disney.com, just waiting for someone to click on some survey button? That seems a little off message. Plus, putting all the princesses together and poking fun at all the things these characters have in common just sort of highlights Disney's terrible track record dating back to the 1950's of showing women characters in peril, having been enslaved or charmed or kidnapped by witches, or worse, needing to be rescued by a stronger male prince character. Yes, times have been changing, and they're shown here taking actions and helping to save Ralph when he falls from a great height, but to me they're still reminders of a less enlightened time, when gender roles in fairy tales had much more disparity. "Mulan" and "Brave" and even "Tangled" were steps in the right direction, but "Sleeping Beauty", "Snow White" and "The Little Mermaid" all need to be updated for modern sensibilities. Leaning on the history of princesses here for the sake of a joke doesn't really accomplish much in that regard.
Fix-It Felix and Calhoun are a great couple - though they seem mismatched, they found a way to make it work, even though she's the tough one, the fighter, and he's the soft one, the builder, the nurturer. They adopt several homeless racer children in this film, and I wish we could have seen more of their home life, but that sub-plot was also jettisoned due to time constraints. But then the characters say they're going to reveal their advice for perfect parenting, only twice a series of racecars speed by and (intentionally, on the part of the filmmakers) makes their advice impossible for the audience to hear. What a cop-out. OK, maybe there is no magical advice on how to be a perfect parent, but then don't TELL ME that there is, and essentially bleep it. It's damn near cowardly.
The only message left that's worth a darn, therefore, is the same one that came from the ending of "Toy Story 4", which is that sometimes you have to say goodbye to a close friend, because you just have different dreams. (Parents, you can at least use this when you have to tell your kids that you're getting divorced, plus don't forget to mention to your kids that they'll have TWO Christmases from now on...). I've already seen Woody and Buzz Lightyear go their separate ways this year, because Woody reunited with Bo-Peep and found a new mission to help lost toys find new owners - and now Vanellope got bored with "Sugar Rush" and has moved on to a new game called "Slaughter Race", (which I thought was based on "Grand Theft Auto", but I guess is really more based on "Twisted Metal"). But even this was a bit confusing - she left one console game, traveled to the internet, and ended up finding a new home in a different video-game? Is that an online game, or is she living in a new arcade somewhere else? It's a bit unclear. Here I suspect the screenwriter doesn't know the difference between an arcade game, a home video-game, and an MMO game.
What I mean to say is, Vanellope is a console game character - she's like 8-bit, or maybe 16. Her old arcade game probably isn't even 3-D, and yet she goes from there to racing in a huge online game created years later, with VR players connecting from all over, full 3-D, greater resolution - and there are NO conversion issues with her entering that world? Meanwhile, I couldn't play old Mac games like "At the Carnival" or "3 in Three" for about 10 years because Mac created a new OS at some point that didn't recognize the old software. I just recently got new versions of those games after somebody created a patch, but that's the kind of thing that SHOULDN'T HAPPEN. Sony also promised that every version of the PlayStation would be able to play the all games from the previous consoles, but that promise got broken when the PS 3 wouldn't play PS1 or PS2 games. Yeah, I'm still not over it.
Also starring the voices of John C. Reilly (last seen in "The Sisters Brothers"), Sarah Silverman (last seen in "The Last Laugh"), Gal Gadot (last seen in "Justice League"), Taraji P. Henson (last seen in "Top Five"), Jack McBrayer (last seen in "Movie 43"), Jane Lynch (last seen in "Mascots"), Alan Tudyk (last seen in "Welcome to Me"), Alfred Molina (last seen in "The Front Runner"), Ed O'Neill (last heard in "Finding Dory"), Bill Hader (last heard in "Toy Story 4"), Melissa Villasenor (ditto), June Squibb (ditto), John DiMaggio (last heard in "Zootopia"), Fuchsia! (ditto), Katie Lowes (ditto), Della Saba (ditto), Phil Johnston (ditto), Rich Moore (ditto), Sean Giambrone (last heard in "The Emoji Movie"), Flula Borg (last seen in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip"), Timothy Simons (last seen in "The Boss"), Ali Wong (last seen in "The Hero"), Hamish Blake, GloZell Green (last heard in "Trolls"), Rebecca Wisocky (last seen in "Hello, My Name Is Doris"), Sam Richardson (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Jaboukie Young-White (last seen in "Rough Night"), Maurice LaMarche (last seen in "Ghostheads"), Jamie Elman (last heard in "Wreck-It Ralph"), Horatio Sanz (last seen in "Lucky You"), Alex Moffat, Michaela Zee, Roger Craig Smith (last heard in "Planes"), Ana Ortiz, Dianna Agron, Colleen Ballinger, Dani Fernandez, Tiffany Herrera, with vocal cameos from Tim Allen (also last heard in "Toy Story 4"), Corey Burton, Adam Carolla (also last heard in "Wreck-It Ralph"), Vin Diesel (last heard in "Avengers: Endgame"), Brad Garrett (last seen in "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work"), Jason Mantzoukas (last seen in "Adult Beginners"), Kristen Bell (also last seen in "The Boss"), Jodi Benson (last heard in "Thumbelina"), Auli'i Cravalho (last heard in "Moana"), Nicole Scherzinger (ditto), Jennifer Hale (also carrying over from "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), Kate Higgins (last heard in "Norm of the North"), Linda Larkin, Kelly Macdonald (last seen in "Special Correspondents"), Idina Menzel (last heard in "Frozen"), Mandy Moore (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Paige O'Hara (last seen in "Enchanted"), Pamela Ribon, Anika Noni Rose (last heard in "The Princess and the Frog"), Ming-Na Wen (last heard in "Mulan 2").
RATING: 6 out of 10 pop-up ads
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