We use Emojis on a daily basis and have done for many years on phone and computer apps.
They have become a cult hit with kids in today’s society with plenty of merchandise available and companies cashing in on this. So when I heard there was a film in the making well I just had to go see it and review it. Is the emoji film as good as other kids hit movies? And is it the next big thing to spurn many sequels? Read my review to find out.
The story centres around Gene (Voiced by T.J Miller) the “Meh” emoji that is wanting to work in the never-seen-before world hidden inside your phone of Textopolis where emojis have just one single expression and eagerly wait for the phone user to select their emoji! However, Gene is different and finds out he has multiple emojis. So after being selected by the user and not being able to take a portrait of his single “Meh” expression but a strange mixture of multiple Emojis he teams up with his best friend Hi-5 (voiced by James Corden) who helped along with the hacker Emoji Jailbreak (voiced by Anna Faris) they go on an epic app-venture through the user’s phone stumbling on popular apps like candy crush and twitter, to name but a few, to try to find the source code to fix Gene. A fun adventure ensures for all three of them and of course, any film has to have a villain and in this one, we have none other than the Emoji “Smiler” (voiced by Maya Rudolph) who wants to disable Gene for good and other emojis like him that are different to others. A nice story of a combined effort of three Emojis that pull together as one unit and stopping at nothing to help one of their own.
I must admit there were not many moments in the movie that made me laugh and likewise for the rest of the audience including the kids. All though the movie was fun in some parts I felt my attention wandering away many times and wondering what else we could have come to watch. The story was just ok and I can see where the producers were going with this but they did not really do the Emojis justice and felt it could have been so much better but it seemed they were just cashing in on the current trend of Emojis which is a shame really.
Good points, every Emoji you can think of is in the movie past and present from various apps, even ones back to the original AOL chat and MSN messenger. The animation is very good and visually looks great, especially on the big screen. It reminded me of the kids film “Inside Out” which we enjoyed immensely and is one to watch again and again! However, the Emoji Movie sadly is not one I can see my kids and myself wanting to watch again together. Overall a shame that we lost 86 minutes of our time when we could have been doing something fun and a lot better.
Author: Paul, York Store
