By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
“Ralph Breaks the Internet” heats up the competition for 2018’s Best Animated Film.
This satirical sequel to the 2012 hit “Wreck-It Ralph” is set in Litwack’s Video Arcade, where Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) spend all their spare time together. While burly Ralph is totally content, spunky Vanellope yearns to spice up her rote racing routine.
A crisis occurs when the steering wheel off her aging Sugar Rush game snaps off and the only replacement part is very expensive on eBay. Since Litwack (Ed O’Neill) has just installed Wi-Fi, Vanellope and Ralph venture into the vast, cacophonous cityscape of the World Wide Web to find it.
Without money to pay for the wheel, they consult the search-engine KnowsMore (Alan Tudyk) and embark on a cyber scavenger hunt, landing in anarchic Slaughter Race, where they encounter leather-clad Shank (Gal Gadot) and her gritty road warrior gang.
From there, it’s on to BuzzTube, run by the slick algorithm Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), who propels insecure Ralph into humiliating himself as a viral video superstar — and there’s Double Dan (Alfred Molina), the sluglike overlord of the Dark web.
The highlight is a Magic Kingdom get-together with Disney fairy-tale princesses, including Ariel (Jodi Benson), Moana (Auli’i Cravalho), Mulan (Ming-Na Wen), Belle (Paige O’Hara), Tiana (Anika Noni Rose), Jasmine (Linda Larkin), Pocahontas (Irene Bedford), Rapunzel (Mandy Moore), Anna (Kristen Bell), Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Merida (Kelly Macdonald).
Unsure that Vanellope is really one of them, Rapunzel inquires, “Do people assume all your problems got solved because a big, strong man showed up?”
“Yes — what’s up with that?” feisty Vanellope replies, inciting some female empowerment.
Smartly scripted with irreverent humor by Pamela Ribon and Phil Johnson, who codirects with Rich Moore, it tackles touchy topics like reacting to other people’s nasty ‘comments’ about you and accepting change, including growing away from your best friend.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Ralph Breaks the internet” is an incisive, inventive 9, filled with humor, heart and meta moments.
In 2015, Ryan Coogler’s “Creed” reinvigorated Sylvester Stallone’s iconic “Rocky” franchise. Now there’s a sequel, “Creed II,” tracing its antecedents back to “Rocky IV” (1985), set during the Cold War.
That’s when Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) died during a brutal fight with Soviet-trained Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Since Rocky Balboa acceded to Apollo’s demand not to thrown in the towel “no matter what,” he’s riddled with regret. He later avenges Apollo’s death but his triumph comes at a cost.
Flash forward to present day Philadelphia. Apollo’s illegitimate son, Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) Johnson, is now World Heavyweight Champion. When he’s challenged by still-bitter Ivan’s son, hulking Viktor Drago (Florian “Big Nasty” Munteanu), Adonis wants vengeance for his father’s death.
Raised in Ukraine and trained by Ivan, formidable Viktor is keenly aware that his disgraced father lost everything: “Country, love, respect,” including his wife/Viktor’s mother, Ludmilla (Brigitte Nielsen), who walked out on them when Ivan was scorned by Russia’s elite.
Meanwhile, Adonis marries his musician girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson), who is worried that her hearing loss will be passed on to their baby, and there are the usual boxing/training montages, superbly chronicled by cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau.
Working from a story by Sasha Penn (“Power”) & Cheo Hodari Coker (“Luke Cage”) that involves fathers/sons, love/defeat, forgiveness/redemption, it’s scripted by Juel Taylor & Sylvester Stallone and directed by Steven Caple Jr. (“The Land”) with some surprise punches.
Returning cast members Jordan, Stallone, Thompson and Phylicia Rashad (who plays Adonis’ devoted stepmother) deliver strong performances, as do Lundgren and Munteanu, who add surprising emotional depth to their now-empathetic characters.
Adonis Creed and Viktor Drago emerge as poignantly kindred spirits whose fates were sealed by their fathers’ match.
On the Granger Gauge, “Creed II” is a totally satisfying 7, packing a powerful wallop.
I don’t recall being as angry at a protagonist as I was watching “The Front Runner” as former Senator Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman) throw away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be POTUS.
This film chronicles the three weeks during 1988 election, when the Senator from Colorado, about whom rumors of infidelity had circulated for years, imploded his political career by inviting Miami Herald reporters to follow him around to see what an uninteresting life he led.
So they trailed him and discovered Donna Rice (Sara Paxon) was flying from Miami to meet him for a weekend in Washington, D.C., That led to unearthing that infamous photo of Rice sitting on Hart’s lap near the Monkey Business yacht, where they’d previously met.
When the subsequent scandal caused Hart to withdraw his Presidential bid, it signified a ‘new era’ in predatory political reporting. Previously, the press had ignored the extramarital affairs of FDR, JFK and Lyndon Johnson. And years later, Bill Clinton survived a similar scandal, along with Donald Trump.
Scripted by Matt Bai, author of “All the Truth Is Out” (2014), with Jay Carson and director Jason Reitman, it chronicles the moment when “politics went tabloid,” creating the celebrity culture surrounding the presidency with Trump as the logical endpoint to what started back then.
Even an actor as appealing as Hugh Jackman cannot make Gary Hart’s lack of judgment palatable, although both Hart and Rice have denied they had an affair. And The Atlantic reported that dying Lee Atwater, Republican rival George H.W. Bush’s campaign manager, had set Hart up.
“Gary is a private person by nature, but also a believer that there should be a separation between the public and private lives of a politician,” says Jackman. “We’re all human. We’ve all got flaws, but what level of flaws will you accept?”
On the Granger Gauge, “The Front Runner” is a fast-paced, yet frustrating 5, chronicling the downfall of a promising politician.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
