A weirder and more interesting movie than “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Ralph Breaks the Internet” tells a lie right in its title because isn’t that thing broken already?

The sequel to Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 2012 release throws a tremendous amount at its key characters, the ’80s-era video game villain voiced so sweetly and well by John C. Reilly, and Vanellope von Schweetz, one of 16 hopped-up competitors in a retro racing game called “Sugar Rush.” Sarah Silverman voices Vanellope, and she’s the ringer here — less of a maniac this time around, as written, and more prominently placed inside the mad swirl of the story.

You can tell Reilly and Silverman recorded their banter in the studio together, as opposed to the usual isolated taping sessions conducted for animated feature projects. “Ralph Breaks the Internet” concerns a long-established friendship on the verge of inevitable, painful change, and Reilly and Silverman work every part of that dynamic successfully.

The material is half-satiric, half-sincere and perpetually in motion. As before, Ralph, Vanellope and their arcade game comrades live and work in an anachronistic Centipedes and Pac-Man emporium called Litwak’s. A broken steering wheel threatens the existence of Vanellope’s racing game, and the hard-to-find replacement part is pricey, which means all 16 Sugar Rush characters are threatened with becoming “gameless.”

Since Litwak’s has recently introduced Wi-Fi to their otherwise antiquated offerings, Ralph and Vanellope zwoop into the internet in search of something called “eBay” where the replacement part can be had for a couple of hundred dollars. Ralph and Vanellope are new to the ways, means and enticements of currency. As much as it’s about the precariousness of friendships and the insecurities of childhood, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is about money woes and self-branding in the name of profit.

Mistakenly, Ralph and Vanellope bid up the coveted “Sugar Rush” steering wheel to the $27,000 level, which puts them in a bind. How to raise it? By becoming a viral sensation on BuzzzTube, that’s how. Much of “Ralph Breaks the Internet” careens in and out of various worlds within the movie’s visualization of the web, which resembles a high-fructose corn syrup remake of “Blade Runner.”

Vanellope and Ralph first take a detour to a “Grand Theft Auto” game called “Slaughter Race” (M-rated, presumably), where Vanellope finds an enviably tough big-sister prototype in Shank (voiced by Gal Gadot). This is something new for Vanellope: a threatening but addictive universe where the track and the obstacles hold more (and more dangerous) surprises than “Sugar Rush.” Ralph just wants to get home to his analog existence with his friend.

The most inspired section of “Ralph Breaks the Internet” arrives when Ralph and Venellope enter the Oh My Disney website, and Vanellope’s consciousness is raised, brilliantly, by a group of off-duty Disney princesses ranging from Snow White to Moana to Elsa from “Frozen.” They joke and roll their big eyes about the Disney tradition of princesses standing around waiting to be saved, and their habit of singing power ballads near bodies of water. For a corporate enterprise, that’s pretty acute self-incrimination.

At the climax, Ralph and Vanellope’s friendship is severely tested, and Ralph’s insecurities become the target for an evil replicating thingy, which leads to millions of “World War Z”-style zombie Ralphs.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.