by Edward Baillargeon
Before this came out, if you were to ask me what was my least anticipated movie of 2017, I would easily say this movie. Just the concept of this movie sounds absolutely stupid and it was hated all over the Internet. Heck, I think it got as much or even more hate than last year’s Ghostbusters reboot, which is another one of my many guilty pleasures. It’s also hard to believe that with a movie with a cast that have proven themselves to be funny in other works; like T.J. Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris, Maya Rudolph, and Patrick Stewart; a decently large budget, and made by a studio like Sony Pictures Animation with not a perfect track record and have made a bunch of stupid decisions but they’ve made some enjoyable films in the past like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 1 & 2, Surf’s Up, and Hotel Transylvania. Now they bring you into the world inside your phone with The Emoji Movie. Hello darkness, my old friend.
Inside the messaging app of a boy’s phone, Gene is an emoji who is supposed to be a “meh” emoji, but he has more than one emotion. After screwing up on his first day, he tries to get to DropBox with the help of a talking hand and a hacker emoji to become “normal” before the boy deletes everything on his phone.
Now, is The Emoji Movie good? No. Is it 7% on Rotten Tomatoes and 2/10 on IMDb bad? No. This movie is just really meh. The Emoji Movie is basically an excuse from Sony to create a 90 minute app commercial created by executives who ask “what do kids like these days?” and gather up all of it into a dated mess. The story is extremely predictable from beginning to end combining the poignant message of Inside Out, the story of Wreck-it Ralph, and the use of licensed products of The LEGO Movie, only done horribly, and ultimately becoming a bland story. The animation is mostly decent with some creative backgrounds and MOSTLY decent designs. Like the story, the characters are predictable and are a bunch of stereotypes like the “guy who is different but doesn’t want to be different” with Gene, the goofy comic relief Hi-5, who is easily the best character in the movie thanks to James Corden trying to be funny while working with an unfunny script I’ll get to later, the girl that can kick butt/bland love interest Jailbreak, and the main antagonist Smiler, who is THE FACE OF MY NIGHTMARES NOW. But the one character that I wish was in the movie more and was wasted potential is easily Patrick Stewart as Poop. How did he go from his fantastic final performance as Charles Xavier in Logan to playing the poop emoji in this?! He’s only in the movie for the beginning and the end and that’s it. Another character besides Hi-5 that was usually funny was Gene’s dad, Mel Meh, perfectly voiced by dry comedian Steven Wright which is the most perfect casting choice in an animated film since Lewis Black as Anger in Inside Out. The humor mostly consists of bad puns, one-liners, and in-your-face product placement including Facebook, Twitter, Just Dance, DropBox, Candy Crush, YouTube with the “classic” song Pen Pineapple Apple Pen, and even Instagram!
Before the movie would start, they would play a Hotel Transylvania short called Puppy, which is about Dennis wanting a new puppy and hijinks ensue. It was better than the movie, but is only just okay. I do not recommend this movie and you shouldn’t take your kids to see it. But I don’t think this movie deserves to be a huge box office bomb and Sony Animation should shut down because of this and keep in mind that every major animation studio has had their share of negativity reviewed movies; like Disney with Chicken Little, Pixar with Cars 2, DreamWorks with Shark Tale, Illumination with Minions, Sony with The Smurfs, and Blue Sky with Ice Age: Collision Course; so that doesn’t make Sony any different. It was bad but not the worst thing ever and that’s I’m giving The Emoji Movie a 4/10 with the Edward’s Seal of Garbage. If you’ll excuse me, I will most definitely need a break and focus on all the other animated films this year (The LEGO Ninjago Movie, My Little Pony: The Movie, Coco) that I know will be better than this.
