About six years has passed since the end of the first movie, and life remains mostly unchanged in the arcade for Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman), who spend their days playing as characters in their video games, and their nights hanging out together, traveling to different games and throwing back root beer at Tapper’s. 

When the steering wheel in Vanellope’s racing game Sugar Rush breaks, the machine is unplugged, leaving all of the characters “gameless” (in other words, homeless). Ralph and Vanellope turn to the Internet to find the part needed to repair the game, starting our heroes on their quest. But the film is really about friendship enduring as people grow and change, and the insecurity one person feels when they are totally happy with the status quo and want nothing to change and the other wonders what more the world has to offer and feels like they need to move on. Ultimately, your friends don’t need to be exactly like you to be your friends and we need to let the ones we love be free to pursue their dreams, even if that means potentially losing them. Heady themes for a kid’s movie.

Ralph checked all the boxes for me: video games, nostalgia, technology, Disney, and Easter eggs aplenty, rivaling Ready Player One for things hidden in the background. (Google the license plate in the shark’s mouth for one great one!) 

The film does a great job of visualizing how technology works—from the concept of packetizing data and sending it through a router and off to the Internet, how searches, viral videos, and pop-ups work—what causes the Internet to drop, and imagining what it might look like if it were a physical place that data actually visited. 

Without a doubt, the scenes at OhMyDisney.com were my favorite parts, and quite possibly some of my favorite scenes from any movie in recent years. This area of the ‘net brings together virtually every Disney property—classic Disney, princesses, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, hidden Mickeys —into a lengthy segment featuring some fantastic Easter eggs throughout that had me smiling until my cheeks hurt. Instead of just being a cheap franchise tie-in, this scene brings these franchises together in a fantastically organic and entertaining manner. And kudos to Disney for getting all of the original actors back to reprise their voice roles. Great stuff!

Similar to how the first film used different animation styles to differentiate between the worlds of Fix-It Felix (Ralph’s game), Sugar Rush (Vanellope’s game), and Hero’s Duty (Calhoun’s game), Breaks has different looks and styles depending on where we are in Ralph’s world—the arcade, inside different games, the Internet, or the Dark Web. 

One of the marquee locales is Slaughter Race, a gritty, smoggy, bathed in eternal dusty-golden-light, crime-ridden world à la Grand Theft Audio. Here we meet ultra-racer/gang leader, Shank (Gal Gadot), who ends up becoming an unlikely mentor and pivotal in Vanellope’s journey as well as contributing to a big-time song & dance number that’s an homage to classic Hollywood pieces of old. 

Animation generally looks fantastic in 4K HDR, and Breaks definitely doesn’t disappoint. Colors are incredibly bright and punchy, almost neon when called for, especially in the Internet. Blacks are also deep, with a lot of detail. 

Breaks sounds as good as it looks, with an aggressive Dolby Atmos soundtrack that’s used effectively throughout, both to create environment and to add impact to the onscreen action.  The overhead speakers are smartly used to create a wonderfully immersive experience, such as the echoing, swirling sounds when Ralph and Vanellope travel into the Internet or the multiple announcements that occur throughout. The carjacking scene in Slaughter Race also sounds great, with a lot of dimensionality and solid bass accompanying the crashes. 

While mostly family friendly, there were a couple of scenes in the film’s final act—notably Ralphzilla and Double-Dan (you’ll know him when you see him)—that were a little too intense and frightening for my almost three year old. Definitely continue watching through the end credits for one last great Ralph meme—probably the most perfect end-credits scene a movie about breaking the Internet could possibly have.