“The Emoji Movie” was released about a week ago at the time of this publication and I was invited by my best friend to see it with her family. Her mom wanted to see it because she thought it would be funny. My first thought when asked was something along the lines of “Good or bad, I can get a review out of it.” So I said sure and went along.
The reviews for this movie are terrible so far. As of the evening of July 30, it only has an eight percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a one-point-four out of ten on IMDb. I wish I could say I was surprised by how horrendous these ratings are.
The movie follows an emoji named Gene, who is supposed to be a meh but has the ability to portray many different emotions, as he teams up with a high five emoji named High-5 (so original, I know), and the mysterious Jailbreak as they try to hack their owner’s phone. Successfully completing their quest will allow Gene to have another chance to be a proper meh, get High-5 back into the exclusive lounge for favorite emojis, and allow Jailbreak to upload herself to the Cloud, freeing herself from the phone.
The idea of a movie making a whole world out of smartphones was actually clever and could have created a great film if it had been properly executed. Instead of getting something of the same caliber as “Inside Out” and its world of emotions in our minds, we got an adventure through apps such as “Candy Crush” and “Just Dance” that is predictable from the start.
From the start of Gene’s adventure, you know exactly how the movie will end and the way to that point is rather expected. The only real surprises are in sub plots and are brushed past so quickly that there is no time to feel surprised. You just have to nod along as the perspective and focus switches back to the story of embracing originality that everyone knows this will be.
On top of being predictable, this movie is full of double entendre. At times, the dialogue is just plain painful, even quoting “Casablanca.” Yes, you heard me correctly: a movie about talking emojis, one of whom throws up the same piece of candy corn twice, has the nerve to quote a classic like “Casablanca.” It was painful to hear, and that was only one offense to the audience’s ears, written amongst overdone cliches and adult jokes meant to go over children’s heads.
That isn’t to say, though, that all of the dialogue is bad, and that was my greatest disappointment watching this movie. There were some genuinely well-thought feminist points made by Jailbreak as the movie went on (I particularly loved when she pointed out that women could only be princesses or brides in the original emoji set). Unfortunately, these lines didn’t hit as hard as they could have because of how weak the rest of the writing was.
Overall, I don’t think “The Emoji Movie” was a bad movie. If anything, it was misguided. With a better writing team and a little more inspiration (or even just more focus on some of the better ideas like Jailbreak’s feminist standpoint or the truth about Gene’s father), this film would have had the potential to be great rather than the flop that it appears to be.
If you really want to see James Corden play a sugar addicted dancing hand with a load of self entitlement or Sir Patrick Stewart play a talking poop, go ahead and see this movie. If not, wait until it hits DVD and save yourself the $11.50 for a ticket.
