Movie Thoughts: The Emoji Movie (2017)

• Released: August 10 2017
• Directed by: Tony Leodis
• Running time: 1 h 26 min
• Rating 1/5

Synopsis

A "defect" meh-emoji called Gene goes on a journey of self-discovery through the phone-verse.

My Thoughts

Yeah… Do I even have to say anything? I got the chance to watch this Piece Of Shit movie legally without paying and I hate myself so I guess I just had to put myself through the misery of watching it. And now I’m going to subject me to more pain by reliving the experience writing this review or rant of sorts. Kill me. Do it right now.

Everything in this movie feels bland. Nothing feels original and well-thought out. It really feels like a bit of a Wreck-it Ralph but in a phone instead of…you know…a game. It’s just overall really had to keep your attention to this movie. Don’t get me wrong, I do truly hate this movie, but I wish I could hate it more. An amusingly bad movie is better than a horribly boring and bland movie, if you ask me, and The Emoji Movie is exactly that. The only thing it stands out at is the unforgivable dullness of the story, the characters and the world.

Speaking of the characters…yeah, they are really just cardboard. They don’t go through interesting development. They don’t feel original, or like you’d want to follow them even. They’re just a bunch of nothing, really. Gene is the bland as hell main hero who of course has to save the day somehow, Jailbreak (my mind seriously keeps calling her Wyldstyle) is the supposedly strong female character that of course also has to be the love interest. Hi-Five is nothing but the fat comic relief. Smiler is the villain who doesn’t even have an interesting motivation other than “I’m the villain so of course I’m evil”.

The world feels boring. I know I give Ralph Breaks the Internet a hard time because I didn’t enjoy that movie much, but at least over there the Internet world made more sense and felt more unique. The Emoji Movie doesn’t give us a unique world. It’s just a giant city within a phone that is inhabited by emojis. The other apps the characters travel through aren’t even that engaging, either.

Also there’s way too much product placement in this movie. Stuff like Twitter, Just Dance, Candy Crush, Dropbox…they’re all here and it’s annoying and distracting as shit.

The jokes are just the worst. The constant puns, poo jokes, fat jokes, they’re just very bad.

Really the only thing I can commend- no, tolerate in this movie is the animation, which isn’t at all bad. I just feel sorry for the animators who have their names attached to what is by now known as one of the worst big-budget animated movies.

The Emoji Movie is just an inspiration-less piece of nothing that somehow had the budget of 50 million. The only think about the movie that’s not downright horrible is the animation, but that still does in no way save it. The biggest crime of the movie is how incredibly forgettable and boring it is. I really expected this thing to be the worst movie I’d see this year, but so far in my Letterboxd 2019 list there’s two movies I’ve seen so far this year that are actually worse. Yes, that is possible, apparently.

Not recommended in the slightest. Do not put yourself through the pain I put myself through. Go watch something good instead. I beg of you. Save yourself.