HOLLYWOOD—Rarely do I ever frown at an animated film, but there is something about “The Emoji Movie” that just leaves you wondering, there is no way someone thought this movie would be that entertaining right? Well, let’s talk about it. As soon as “The Emoji Movie” opens I was immediately taken back to the animated flick “The Lego Movie.” Why? There was something that gave off the vibe that the filmmakers wanted to take the audience into the inner workings of a world that many might have questions about, or would want to know more about.
The one difference between “The Lego Movie” and “The Emoji Movie” was the layout of the characters and the narrative was far more entertaining. The movie revolves around you named it, emoji’s (those little things we use on our phones to communicate, without actually using words). Inside Textopolis, we meet Gene (voice of T.J. Miller) who is on the verge of getting the opportunity to be used on teenager Alex (voice of Jake T. Austin), as he goes through the motion of high school.
Gene is known as ‘meh,’ an emoji that conveys an emotion that is very difficult to describe in real life. You don’t care, yet you care, but you can’t really show it. Yeah, if I was an emoji that would be difficult to convey for me America! When Gene gets the opportunity to shine, he totally botches the situation, which leads to a massive failure in Textpolis, where Smiler (voice of Maya Rudolph), makes it her mission to terminate Gene from Alex’s cell phone. I will admit Smiler is indeed a hilarious character, who even while mad is still forced to smile endlessly.
On his mission to save his life, Gene meets with Hi-5 (voice of James Corden) and Jailbreak (voice of Anna Faris), who make it their mission to hack the phone to prevent themselves from being deleted from the phone entirely. The biggest problem with “The Emoji Movie” is the emojis attempt to deliver laughs fall on deaf ears. I mean when Poop (voice of Patrick Stewart) talks about washing his hands after using the restroom, I just frowned my face. The thought of the filmmakers implementing that lackluster joke into the movie makes it clear: no originality or thought were actually put into most of the jokes.
What the movie attempts to do is inform kids that it’s okay to be different; don’t feel the need to conform just because this is what everyone EXPECTS you to be. That is something I truly enjoyed about the film, even though there were plenty of flaws (lackluster characters, unbelievable plot), the theme of being authentic to one’s self is quite powerful to say the least. Best advice I can give to a viewer entering into theater to watch “The Emoji Movie” is don’t really expect to be entertained, especially adults, the kids it could fall either way.
