Rated PG For Rude Humor
1hr 26min/86 Minutes
Zero Stars out of 4
There's a short film shown before the theatrical screening of "The Emoji Movie". Based on the highly successful "Hotel Transylvania" films, "Puppy" is a five-minute exercise in a silent comedy, albeit with sound. In it, Dennis(voiced by Asher Blinkoff), the son of couple Mavis(Selena Gomez) and Johnny(Andy Samberg), is lamenting about how much he would love a puppy. While his parents tell him that taking care of a small creature is a big responsibility to uphold, Dracula(Adam Sandler) overhears this and decides to spoil his grandson by giving him an adorably giant dog, one who's head delightfully grazes the ceiling. The short flies by like, well, a dog playing outside. It's five minutes, and in those five minutes, the short sets up a believable story, likable characters and comedic set pieces. Now, the movie starts and imagine my total surprise that the 86 minute feature to follow, not only had none of those things I mentioned, but, somehow, was totally empty. There is nothing, I mean nothing to reach your hand out and grab onto in "The Emoji Movie". One is to ponder why, exactly, this particular film exists. One needs to look no further than the films own Wikipedia page. In the section discussing the production of the film. In it, you find out that Tony Leonids, the director of the film, was wondering about how to make a "Toy Story" like film about a toy of some sort that was the current craze. At the moment of his wonderment, he received a text with an emoji attached, and that's how we have this. If that isn't the definition of a true Hollywood success story, then I don't know what is.
Gene(voiced by T.J. Miller) is an emoji, very excited to start his first day of being in the texting app for the phone of Alex(Jake T. Austin). He's not supposed to be excited, rather, he's supposed to be "meh." Gene is to provide that simple function and emotion 24/7 in order to fit in with the rest of the phone. Gene can express an array of emotions, which causes him to screw up, royally, on his first day of the job. Finding out that one of her employees isn't performing the proper emotion, Smiler(Maya Rudolph), an emoji that's to be constantly happy all the time, orders Gene to be reset. Following a meeting with other emojis, Smiler changes her words and orders Gene to be destroyed. Malfuntions aren't allowed in her place of business, but Gene doesn't want to be essentially murdered for making a mistake, so he sets out with High Five(James Corden) to find a hacker by the name of Jailbreak(Anna Faris). The reason? So they can reach the Cloud. The Cloud is the only thing that can reset Gene in order for him to perform his one and only function. Along the way, they have to out-run the anti-virus bots sent out by Smiler, navigate different apps throughout Alex's phone and discover what it means to be a real emoji, once and for all... or something like that.
Why must Gene be ordered to perform only one function? Can't he be allowed to express himself and just save his function for when he clocks in for his time on the phone? Actually, he only really needs to perform his "meh" function for about ten seconds. The emojis all get in their squares and if Alex picks them, then all they have to do is make the appropriate face for a few seconds while a machine scans them in. The machine then sends the scanned face up to the phone so Alex can see and use it, if need be. When Gene makes a simple mistake, Smiler, and all the other emojis for that matter, treat him negatively. The way Smiler explains to Gene what the exact issue is, she does it with the same affectation as a school administrator explaining to a student that they have a learning disability. Nothing too wrong with it, until Smiler orders him to be executed because of it. That's wildly unacceptable to put in a film for children/pre-teens. It's OK to show someone not being accepted by others and his or her plight to prove them wrong. That's a wonderful message to send to kids, but to show the main antagonist of the film ordering death on the main character for being different, that tells the kids that if you are one of the more unique individuals out there and people don't quite understand you, there is someone out there who possibly wants to cause you harm because you're a little different. Yes, there are bullies out there, trust me, I experienced them too much when I was younger, but movies are supposed to be an escape, especially for the little ones. Bringing up this aspect might make them worried. Smiler is portrayed as a psychopathic freak with severe OCD. While there might be people like her in real life, I can't think of a single one that exists in a child's world. 
What about the non-emotion specific emojis? The pizza? The Ice cream cone? Are they supposed to perform under one single emotion or are they the only ones allowed to do as they please? So many questions are subtly posed by "The Emoji Movie", yet none of them can be bothered to be answered. The movie seems to have no agenda, merely just a product of standing there, hoping the audience enjoys the fact that it's wasting their time. As for our main character, Alex, he is totally useless to the main story, as he is the rest of the movie. Take "Inside Out" for example, one of the movies the film poorly apes; Riley is our main character for that story and she is a winning creation. She has a clear motive for the emotions inside her head and a reason as to why they wanna help her. She is well-developed and thoroughly likable throughout. Alex is a non-entity and the reason as to why the emojis want to help him is mystifying. It really doesn't make a severe impact on him, the emojis have no effect on his emotions or life, they just cause him minor irritation and inconvenience. That's another thing; at one point, the emojis have to race to get to the Cloud because Alex has set up an appointment at the phone store. He's 14 years old. There's no conceivable way he would be able to set up a phone appointment by himself. Odds are, his parents have purchased the phone for them, they foot the bill for his phone. He doesn't have a job, ergo, no income coming in. The owners of the phone(the parents) would have to set up the appointment. Also, why are the emojis concerned about being deleted from the phone? Alex is going to the store to begin with to wipe the phone for a clean reset. OK, but the emojis come standard on every phone, therefore they wouldn't get deleted. Alex is also very careless with his phone. As the employee has hooked up his phone to a computer, the phone begins resetting itself. Since Alex is fixated on some girl, he instead takes the phone off the cord, thereby interrupting the process. The phone is totally fine after this. I'm sorry, but if you do that in real life, your phone is far past gone.
Jailbreak is a total cardboard cutout of Wildstyle from "The LEGO Movie". She acts as if she's a punk-rock chick with a softer side just waiting to be uncovered by the nature of the plot. When this softer side is revealed, it has no impact on the story. High Five is beyond unctuous; insufferable to have to witness, this is our supposed comic relief. I mean who doesn't find tired old jokes like "#Blessed", "#Truth" or "Bye, Felicia" funny? I don't. The last time I laughed at "Bye, Felicia" was only a minor chuckle when Daniel Tosh signed off an episode of "Tosh.0" with a perfect delivery of the line. That was two years ago. The movie stops twice, twice, dear readers, so the characters can play a game, both at five minutes apiece. The first is "Candy Crush" after Gene inadvertently becomes trapped in the game board. It's about as entertaining as playing the actual game, which is to say it's as stiff as the waiting room you play the game in. The second is "Just Dance". First off, how do you play "Just Dance" on a phone? It's a motion, exercise based game, so playing it on a phone defeats the purpose entirely. This is also where Gene makes up "The Emoji Pop", a dance where you squat up and down like you have to really rush to the bathroom and make dumb faces accordingly. They also take the time to travel to apps like YouTube, where you see the stupid "Pen-Apple-Pineapple-Pen" video and a cat video from ages ago; The piracy app where they find Jailbreak(going into this app, this prompts Gene to ask "What could a teenage boy want to hide from his parents?" The answer should be obvious, but given that this is stuck with a PG rating, you can't really say that), and the Instagram app, and honestly, this is where the only neat moment of the movie is given. Whenever an emoji goes into an Instagram photo, the photo becomes a still, three dimensional world they can kind of interact with. That's where the minor compliment ends. In order to get to the Cloud, the emojis ride Spotify soundwaves so they can get to the Dropbox app(which they make sure to mention is a secure and safe app), so they can break down the firewall to get to the Cloud. If Sony could stop fondling themselves in the form of a movie, that'd be great. "Wreck-It-Ralph", this is certainly not.
T.J. Miller, usually very funny and charming, is lost as Gene. His voice acting is neither happy, nor jovial. James Corden is stiff, wooden and unfunny as High Five. Corden has been solid before, even on his TV show, but you wouldn't know it by watching this. Anna Faris is delightful, funny, charming and sweet, but as Jailbreak, she is forced to use abbreviations like "NBD" and "Keep it on the DL", sound tough and then warm and opening. It's unconvincing and sad. Maya Rudolph is unsettling as Smiler, and not in a good way. Steven Wright and Jennifer Coolidge make no impression, both in the movie and as their characters, as Gene's parents. Christina Aguilera plays the "Just Dance" instructor and makes such little impact that she might as well have not even shown up. Finally, Sir Patrick Stewart is shamefully given the role of playing the poop emoji. He'll bounce back after this, but it's still embarrassing. One last thing about the voice acting: It seems as if it sounds like the actors are being held hostage in the recording booth. They sound worried and uncertain. If they enjoyed themselves, hey, good for them, but it sounds like they're uncomfortable. Jeff Ross shows up to voice an internet troll, in which all trolls are portrayed as overweight slobs without jobs, companions and lives. That's nice.
"The Emoji Movie" left me in a catatonic state as to how low an animated film can sink, one from a a major studio, no less. How is a movie that has no story, no substance, nothing at all that the viewer can hold onto and think about long after the film is over, released nationwide? I've seen direct-to-video movies miles better than this, and those were the movies deemed not good enough for theatrical distribution. This is such a disgusting example of filth that's pushed onto children, and they've been getting some solid movies this year, with "The LEGO Batman Movie", "Captain Underpants", "Cars 3" and the soon to come out as of this writing "The LEGO Ninjago Movie". Who thought that children would take to this? Honestly? I want someone to tell me what the motive is here. You wanna know what I experienced? In a theater that was semi-packed with children and families, the audience was stone silent. It's so awkward to sit through an animated film that tries to be funny and heartwarming, only for the audience to give it nothing in return. Out of the entire audience, only one person laughed. The person was myself, and it wasn't even from the actual film itself. It was from something one of the children at my screening said to the movie. During a scene where Alex is interacting with the girl he likes, as the girl is walking away and the film becomes silent for a moment, a child said out loud "Ugh, she's ugly." The statement caught me so off guard, that it managed to make me laugh. Kudos, kid. 
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