The Emoji Movie

Voices of: T.J. Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris, Maya Rudolph, Steven Wright, Jennifer Coolidge, Patrick Stewart, Christina Aguilera, Sofia Vergara, Rachael Ray, Sean Hayes, Jeffrey Ross
Directed by: Tony Leondis
Rating: PG
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
2017

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Gene (T.J. Miller) is an emoji aberration- rather than doing one thing, he does many. He sets out to fix his glitch so he can be normal.

Review:

Tim: I read somewhere that director Tony Leondis rushed production of The Emoji Movie because he sees emojis as a fad that won't last very long. That's the view you want in the writer and director of your movie. Universally, people groaned when they heard they were making a movie about emojis. Come on, you know that is surprisingly stupid. The idea is a really bad one. That being said, I have to say that the story worked better than I expected. This movie was almost unanimously criticized by critics. While so many people hated the movie, I felt more ambivalent. This is absolutely a bad movie, but it's not even the worst animated movie of 2017 (I'm looking at you, Academy Award nominated The Boss Baby). This is a poor movie, but Leondis did better than I expected him to do.

While I hate the fact that a movie about Emojis exists, I suppose you could argue it reflects our currently reality of obsession and immersion in cell phones. It's ridiculous to set an entire film within a smartphone, but how much of current lives are spent staring into the small glowing rectangle? It's awful, but the movie does reflect our society in 2017. I suppose the downside is that we really didn't need a film glorifying our cell phone addictions. We didn't need to see an entire world set within the confines of a phone.

Part of the reason I disliked this movie slightly less than some is because of T.J. Miller in the lead role. His character was stupid, but his voice is so perfect for this kind of character. You just feel a connection with that voice, which translates somewhat to the character. James Corden was fine, although his character was incredibly annoying. Like seriously so. Anna Faris was fine, her character was one of the more interesting ones. Maya Rudolph felt far too over the top. I felt very sad to hear Patrick Stewart voicing Poop. I mean, I get it, but it's Patrick Stewart. Sigh. I did enjoy hearing Steven Wright's very distinctive voice. The overall voice cast might not have been fantastic, but it's definitely one of the stronger aspects of the film.

The whole movie does feel very generic. The story feels average. The animation isn't anything spectacular. The film has a few humorous moments, but those are far overshadowed by the lackluster ones. It feels like a rushed production without any desire to do something extraordinary. It felt like a cash grab, rather than having any ambition at all. That's really disappointing. Of course, there's a few life lessons to be mined about being yourself and not adhering to the boxes people try to put us in. It's not like the film is completely worthless, it's just a very sub par effort.

I know a lot of people hated The Emoji Movie. In some ways, I'm glad, because I feel like too many animated movies get great feedback from critics when I feel strongly that the movies are garbage. It's as if so many critics are overly forgiving simply because a movie is animated and targeted to kids. I'm glad they railed against The Emoji Movie because this is a bad film. I might not have hated it as much as many others, but I was certainly very dissatisfied with it.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 5.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Inside Out, The Star