At the end of the summer, there are only a few major movie releases before the Fall season starts again, which means that all of the Blockbusters have been greeted by the masses and most of the highly-acclaimed indie films are just now starting to wrap up there limited theatre debuts. This window gives studios a small window of time to just completely throw ANYTHING they can at the screen, hoping it sticks and makes it's budget back. That's essentially how we ended up with The Emoji Movie in the first place.

So now the movie is out and the official ranking is....much more negative than I originally thought. Critics HATE this movie for the sole reason that it is SUCH a blatant cash-grab and everything about it is just....well, lazy. The plot is essentially Disney's Inside Out and Wreck-It Ralph, but with well known smartphone throwaways and apps (a little bit late on the Candy Crush phase, Sony. We've moved on). The animation, while pretty, does not help the film, due to unoriginal writing and a script that is so unoriginal and over played that audiences can pretty much guess the "jokes" before they even happen. While the voice actors try their best, the film just seems to drag them down (you can do so much better, Sir Patrick Stewart). The entire movie is an over-extended product placement, trying so hard to relate to the smartphone generation and the current "emoji generation" (is that an actual thing?), that it simply overextends itself trying to be a marketing campaign more than a movie.

The ACTUAL marketing campaign for The Emoji Movie essentially foretold the outcome of the film. There was nowhere you could go without seeing some kind of product or advertisement aimed at this movie, which is basically how all youth-targeting films operate, but this was an AGGRESSIVE campaign. Sony threw so much money at advertisers and tried everything, just to ensure that there would be butts in seats come opening day. The signs showed that this movie, with as many backers as it had, was bound to flop.

So now the reviews are in. With a 0% on Rotton Tomatoes, and an astounding number of scathing reviews by critics, The Emoji Movie has officially been called out for what it is: a vapid, meaningless cash grab for the end of summer, trying (and failing) to relate to the current generation. However, you may like it. The Emoji Movie is currently in theatres.

Personally, I'm gonna sit this one out.