128.
The Emoji Movie
6.5/10
The movie that has had some of the worst reviews I have ever seen. People have either said that this is one of the worst movies ever, or viewers have been sarcastic and said it's the best, with nothing in between. So, will this be a massive flop, or is it the case that most reviewers are out of touch with what modern children are now eyeing up as an appealing film. From the trailer, there looked like there can be some decent humour and decent animation. Either way, I wonder which emotion I'll be walking out of the cinema with.
The film starts outside of a school, with a narrator telling us about how kids these days are immersed in their phones. The is emphasised as we see two boys looking at theirs, walk head first into each other and lay on the ground, carrying on texting. We are following one boy in particular, who already has a crush on a girl, who texts him, as we zoom into his phone and to the city of Textopolis. This place houses the Emojis, every one of them that we are familiar with and they all perform their act that they were designed for. Gene is an Emoji that was designed to express 'meh', just like his parents. He's voiced by T.J. Miller. One problem is that he constantly fails during the day. He meets others on the street and can't contain his excitement or laughter, which constantly changes him into other Emojis unintentionally. Other little humour points are made on the street, where a calendar stands over a street grate and has her 'pages' blown up like Marilyn Monroe, the three wise monkeys make a joke and then hold their parts of the face that they are famous for and an elephant stands next to a gust of wind, symbolising some crude humour. Gene is set for his first day in the office and even though his parents don't think that he is ready, because he doesn't show the right emotion, he heads in to the station anyway. Whilst he has this talk with his parents, they are in the toilet and out of the cubicle come two 'poo' Emojis, singing that they are number two rather than number one. The older one is actually voiced by Patrick Stewart. Gene's greeted by the head of the text centre, Smiler, who was the original Emoji. Shit, this woman has the same name as my nickname, this is going to be a little annoying. Gene has always been somewhat of an outsider because of his many emotions and expressions, but he plans to change that today, by ceasing his chance. We see other popular Emojis, such as the devil, fist bump, who's called a knuckle head, Flamenca and all of them stand inside their own cube, where they await to be scanned and sent to Alex's screen to send. We also see a VIP lounge, where microchips act as bouncers and a 'Hi-5' tries to get in. This area is for the frequently used Emojis. There is a coffee Emoji, which has the shakes and others which follow stereotypes.
Back to the real world and Alex wants to send an Emoji back to his crush, Addie and obviously he going to choose the new guy. Gene gets all flustered and creates a weird face, which is sent to the girl instead. She isn't impressed and nor is Alex. Gene tries to escape his cube and jumps onto the scanner, dragging it out of place and causing it to wreck the rest of the cubes. The 'poo' emoji constantly dishes out puns and as all this is going it, it's the one to say, 'oh sh..' Gene is called in Smiler's office after they have a board meeting about what to do next. He's described as a malfunction, so must now be deleted so that nothing else happens to the phone. She brings in some AV bots to get rid of him but he escapes and runs into the VIP area and is followed by the bots. Hi-5 helps him escape to a basement room, where the least used Emojis hang out. Hi-5 is voiced by James Corden, who I hate. In this loser's room, there is an Emoji of an eggplant and with all the memes on the internet that connects this vegetable with a male sexual organ, it's hardly unused. Gene tells Hi-5 what's happened and he decides that they need to find a hacker named Jailbreak. This is interesting because jail breaking a phone is actually a term where you unlock it for other providers, so quite clever. Gene wants to be reprogramed to be a proper 'meh' Emoji and Hi-5 wants to be popular again. The two sneak out and exit the city, walking through the app wall and onto the phone's wallpaper. Gene's parents, who watched the craziness unfold, realise that their son is missing now. They decide to go searching for him but Smiler sets some bots to follow them too.
Gene and Hi-5 make it to the privacy app, but not before visiting some others. They pop into Facebook, where we hear everyone talking about their kids and needing likes. The two talk about the people needs in there being about needing to be liked, even if it's not by their friends. Finally arriving at the privacy app, it's set out as a grubby, dark, app that contains pubs and internet trolls, viruses and spam emails. The virus sneezes and covers a troll in coded snot. After asking the Trojan horse, which is a well-known hackers programme, they find jailbreak and she is a female Emoji. Apparently, in the past, she's helped get rid of the Princess Emoji, who we have already seen as high maintenance. She only decides to help them once she notices how many faces Gene can change into. The bots have tracked them down and the three exit as other drinkers are being deleted. Once they are out, Jailbreak knows they need to go to the phone's Dropbox and get to the cloud to reprogram them all. The escape route they have used though, leads them into the Candy Crush game and Gene has actually fallen in a way that he has become one of the candies. As they play to try and release him, it actually makes the sound effects on Alex's phone, just as he is trying to ask Addie to the school dance. She gets made awkward and walks off instead. Hi-5 has been constantly eating the candy near him and finally has a sugar rush, running everywhere until he finally crashes. He throws up a gummy sweet but eats it again, which is seen in the trailer, but in a different back drop from what I'd already seen, which was weird. The next app they head into is, Just Dance. There, they meet an avatar, voiced by Christina Aguilera. They must dance the same moves as her in order to progress on the levels and get to the other side, where the exit is. Jailbreak reveals that she can't dance, so Gene helps her out, creating his own dance along the way. Hi-5 on the other hand, mind the pun, is a pro and quickly completes his journey with full stars and a high score. Whilst jailbreak is dancing, her hat and wig fall off and it's revealed that she is actually the escaped Princess Emoji. As they near the end, once again the bots show up, this time they get involved with the dancing and some pretty decent throwback tunes. The app makes noises on Alex's phone, this time whilst he is in class and he quickly deletes the app. Causing the surroundings to slowly disappear and as the trio make it to the exit, a bot grabs Hi-5 and they vanish to the trash. The two remaining Emojis are outside the Dropbox app but Gene feels the need to go back and save Hi-5. He's never had a friend before and now isn't the time to lose his only one. Jailbreak finally agrees and they travel the streams on Spotify but boat. A fast beat song is rough water as a slow calm stream is classical music. Very clever analogy. Jailbreak reveals that she likes Gene, just the way he is and they get off the boat and head to the trash. Alex has had enough of his phone and arranged to take it into the shop to get it wiped. After learning this, Smiler illegally upgrades her bot and sends it after Gene to end this. Hi-5 is lying, accepting his fate and the other deleted characters from before are less accepting. He finds an email that Alex failed to send to Addie, revealing his feelings and he even ended it with a Hi-5 Emoji. The top of the trash opens with a bright light and the deleted are ready to be cleaned out, but it's Gene and he takes Hi-5 back up with him. Hi-5 sends the rope back down for the rest but kicks the puller down with them, leaving the rest stranded.
The two Meh parents are seen searching in the YouTube app and trapping bots inside there with cat videos, before arguing with each other about who is too blame for Gene. They separate but later find themselves in the Instagram app, where they enter a picture taken in France. The father admits that Gene is his fault. He has the same multiple expressions. The two get back together and head back off to find their son. On the way to the Dropbox, our trio are found by the new bot and after a chase scene, they manage to tangle it's arm up and buy themselves some time in order to enter a chair lift to the Dropbox. Finally, they get to the firewall and need a password to get passed. Once one Emoji gets it wrong, they are locked out for good, but because Gene can change his face many times, they have plenty of attempts. Each failure ends with a fiery burst, but Hi-5 chips in and remembers Addie's name being on the e-mail, so maybe she could be the password. Stalker alert, it's right and the trio pass through into the cloud. Before Gene changes, he realises that he has feelings for Jailbreak but doesn't get the answer he wanted. She doesn't want to leave her plan of living on the cloud, the thought of being what she wants to be. Heartbroken, Gene takes on the Meh face without question and wonders back to get caught by the bot. Hi-5 runs after Jailbreak to tell her what has happened. They need a transport to get back, so she gives a little whistle, like a Princess and the Twitter bird arrives to fly them home.
Back at the text centre and Gene is brought in front the cubes full of Emoji, with Smiler preparing to have him deleted. All of the other Emojis look shocked, as the parents walk in and the father reveals his malfunction too. He is thrown in front of the bot as well, before Jailbreak and Hi-5 crash through the ceiling and Hi-5 hits the stop button on the back of the massive bot. It falls straight onto Smiler, as Alex is already at the shop in order to sort out his phone. As it gets plugged in, everything on the phone starts to disappear. There is time to send one text, a text to get Alex's attention and it's going to be to Addie. Gene steps into a cube to get scanned, he shows all the expressions to show how Alex feels for Addie and sends it in a text to her. She comes over to him in the shop, proclaiming how cool the Emoji was. Just as Gene is the only thing left in the phone, Addie says yes to going to the dance with Alex and he now begins to like how unique his phone is. He unplugs it and leaves. Back in the phone, Gene is the instant hero. Hi-5 is popular again for his heroics too and Jailbreak has taken back to being the Princess. They all have a party as they get rid of the VIP lounge. Everyone is doing the dance that Gene created earlier to complete the movie. During the end credits, Smiler is now in the loser's basement wearing braces after he squash.
I'm not too sure this deserves the absolute thrashing that it has had. It does what it says on the tin really. I'm pretty sure that the age group that have had to review this are too far passed understand everything that was going on regarding the clever terms and uses of the apps. Yes, most of the humour moments were simple puns and predictable, along with the storyline, but what else more did you expect? Just a misunderstood character, looking to be accepted by people sounds like Wreck It Ralph, which contained the same kind of humour but no one ripped that a new arse hole. It held the overall values of simply being yourself and if this was the way to get through to the smart phone generation then so be it. It reminded me of Inside Out where it was able to work to storylines of inside something and another in the real world, unfortunately, it didn't make the best out of it being how predictable the whole thing was but it was nowhere near deserving of the slating that it has gotten.
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