The Emoji Movie. On paper, probably the worst idea for a movie ever. And largely because of that, because I thought it would be genuinely terrible, I have wanted to watch this movie for so long. When it was in cinemas I tried to talk my girlfriend into watching it with me but she was having none of it. However we are coming up to Christmas very shortly, and I'm having a pretty full on last week at work, so I made the decision to treat myself tonight. An early Christmas present to me; to buy The Emoji Movie from Amazon Prime, and then they went and made it free for Prime Subscribers anyway...
Alex has an smartphone, like every child on the planet I guess, and inside his phone the uh... emoji people of Textopolis (the messaging app?) live a crazy existence called upon to serve in 'The Cube' and just be themselves whenever Alex needs to use an emoji on his phone in a text message. But Gene (T.J Miller), who is supposed to be the 'meh' face just can't be that, get's mega stage fright when it comes for his time to be used and really messes things up for Alex. This upsets Alex who thinks his phone is malfunctioning and also upsets the Smiling emoji (Maya Rudolph), who runs the place, and she sends antivirus programs to delete Gene from the phone. Running away from them, with his friend; High 5 emoji (James Corden) Gene is introduced to Jailbreak (Anna Faris) who used to be the Princess emoji but has fled Textopolis. Jailbreak promises to help Gene be re-programmed so he can return to Textopolis and fit in, but on their quest to get to Dropbox and The Cloud, the pair fall in love (I think?) and finally Gene comes to terms with the fact he's meant to be more than just a 'meh' emoji. Meanwhile, stuck with a malfunctioning phone Alex decides to format and start afresh, and only Gene can save the day by portraying all the emoji's at once in a text that convinces Alex to change his mind and stop the format.
Yeah... so for a film about cartoon faces used in a text message to portray individual emotions there is a lot going in the plot right there... I'll cut to the chase - I went into this expecting it to be awful. Genuinely bum scrapingly, bowel wrenchingly awful, but it was a perfectly serviceable and above average kids movie. I honestly do not understand the hate. This was a 100 times better than Sharkboy & Lavagirl for example. It wasn't quite at the dizzying heights of say Pixar, or Dreamworks, but it wasn't terrible. Not by a long shot. No way.
I really don't like James Cordon, it's nothing personal about the guy, I just find him irritating. I feel he always plays the same act; blundering, lovable relatable oaf always putting his foot in it, always jumping in with 2 feet first but meaning well, and I just have no affection for those characters, ever, but even he, even he came across as at least likeable in this movie. T.J. Miller did a good job as the lead and so did Anna Faris as the support. Having Maya Rudolph as the slightly psychotic forever happy villain was great casting and Smiling Emoji in general was a really clever and fresh idea for a movie villain. Yes they are actual words I just typed... maybe I've been doing this for too long.
I absolutely went into this hoping that the remarkable, astonishing awfulness of it would give me an opportunity to vent spleen about the shoddy animation, the product placement, the 'jumping on the bandwagon' mentality e.t.c but I actually feel completely the opposite. I would watch this with my kids... if I had any... I mean sure, it's not without it's negatives: it wasn't the funniest kids film I ever watched but it got a snort out of me here and there, it is very hyperactive - like a small child that ate too much sugar, and once you get past the gimmick of being inside the phone, and all the characters being emoji's, and the gimmicky actions of them doing stuff because they are emoji's it's a very formulaic kids movie, but it has slightly clever tweaks and fresh approaches to certain bits that just give it a bit of a nose ahead of the competition.
I can't quite understand how this film didn't do better. Maybe it wasn't given a chance? I genuinely think the deluge of criticism comes from the stigma of "evil technology" or whatever... complete bollocks. The characters are likeable, the plot is enjoyable, the gimmicks are sprinkled finely but not overbearingly so, and the animation is more than on par. I'm probably a bit old to appreciate the soundtrack but I'm sure the kids loved it at the time... I honestly thought this was gonna blow chunks but it ending up being a pleasant surprise. Fuck the haters, Emoji Movie ✋😀 3 out of 5.
