The Emoji Movie (2017) REVIEW – Out of Touch, Out of Ideas

Source: Vox

Let’s not beat around the bush here: we were all expecting this movie to be bad, but while watching The Emoji Movie, I felt like I was watching a series of advertisements instead of a film. Within the first five minutes, all feeling of effort put into the film is lost, as it begins to dive into product placement after product placement, showcasing apps that will be outdated in a year. There’s even a Candy Crush tutorial, and nobody plays that anymore.

If you don’t know how any of these apps work, don’t worry: the filmmakers don’t either (with the exception of Candy Crush). With the entire plot relying on the idea of Dropbox being a hacking app, and that the video that is meant to represent YouTube is “Pen Pineapple Apple Pen” which is by this point, eleven months out of date, you can’t help but feel that everyone behind the movie was extremely out of touch. Every scene that takes place in the mentioned apps go on for way too long, and fail to deliver any sort of humor. Not just from adults in the audience, but children were also bored and annoyed by the entire movie, not an ounce of laughter from either party.

Speaking of kids, this movie misrepresented teens by stating that they only talk through emojis, and that they will actually say out loud, “hey that’s a pretty cool emoji!” When it gets to the point that someone wins another person’s heart with an emoji, it’s time to start wondering if anyone at Sony has even seen a kid in the past ten years. They try to make the main human character seem like he has a cute little crush on a girl but it gets creepy when his phone’s password is the name of the girl he likes. It’s also a huge coincidence that everywhere he was, she was there too, for no reason either. From her perspective, I’d feel a little creeped out, but no, she likes him back at the sight of his emoji. The movie basically promotes being shallow by only liking a guy based on the emojis they send you.

Yes, that is what this movie teaches your children.

Gene (a “Meh” emoji played by TJ MIller) comes off as the most self-centered main character I’ve ever seen, putting his entire world at risk because he doesn’t feel like making his “meh” face for one second so that it can get scanned and sent to the phone as a two-dimensional emoji, which is pretty ironic since the entire movie also feels flat.

The Emoji Movie is not suitable for kids, misrepresents the way teenagers communicate , and insults adults by trying to slip by advertisements, leaving the movie with no real audience to please. You will leave the film with a raging headache, feeling offended by what you just watched and wasted your $12.50 on.

The Emoji Movie is not recommended.

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