What the fuck am I even supposed to write?
No, seriously. What do I even write? What is there to write? It's The Emoji Movie. Even the title is an indication of zero substance. I didn't walk into the theatre expecting a good movie, or even a surprise. I knew this would suck. Everyone knew this would suck. It's The Emoji Movie, for God's sake. An entire movie that was built around little animated faces that you send to people in place of words, in messages designed to keep conversations short. Emojis are shortform for a shortform; they're the audiobooks of conversation. And just like audiobooks, this movie was never going to be something I would enjoy.
Now, in the Internet's constant state of hyperbole, The Emoji Movie has been made out to be the end times. Apparently, this is the official sign that Hollywood is out of ideas, and cinema will never recover from the blemish that is The Emoji Movie. This is a very stupid stance to take, because The Emoji Movie is a bad kids' film, and nothing more. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's just bad; it's atrocious. It's impressively bad in every way, and it doesn't help that almost every aspect of it has been borrowed from much better movies. And really, the reason why this film is fails so hard is because of its complete lack of effort.
It's like the writers sat down and watched Inside Out, The Lego Movie, and Wreck-It-Ralph back-to-back, and just said "Let's do all of that, but with emojis." Then again, I don't really blame the writers for this movie. Well, I do - everyone should be ashamed - but I have a feeling that most of the creative team behind this movie didn't fully believe in it. The Emoji Movie represents the latest development in the mind of the out-of-touch studio executive, and this one's in charge of a studio that has been releasing failure after failure. Sony are desperate for a hit; they can always make money off Spider-Man, but they needed something else. I imagine the conversation went something like this:
"Hey, Bob, my grandson's always texting with these emoji things."
"Brilliant, Jim. Get Patrick Stewart on the phone."
And now, here we are. Frankly, I'm not surprised that the movie feels like a patchwork of better things, because other things is all they have to work with. What story potential do emojis offer? None. Emojis are known for representing one thing, so the main character...doesn't do that? Well, that fits the typical kids' film archetype of "outsider protagonist who turns out to be the most super-special guy in the whole world," so it's going in the script. Add a hyper-capable, "cool" female character - Jailbreak (Anna Faris) - to serve as the competent one (and the love interest, despite her numerous statements that she's more than just an empty shell of a character). And to make the team complete, add an aggravating comedy relief sidekick - Hi-5 (James Corden) - who says stupid things to make babies laugh. There, you've got your protagonists.
Every time you try to think about how the logic of the story functions, The Emoji Movie falls apart. We follow Gene (T.J. Miller), an emoji who was born to fill the "meh" role in his user's phone. But Gene can express all sorts of different emotions, making him an outlier amongst the emojis, much to the dismay of his parents, Mel Meh (Steven Wright) and Mary Meh (Jennifer Coolidge). So, emojis have parents. How do they reproduce? Can emojis have sex? Can emojis die? They can be deleted, but why do they age? Why do they need to bring in a new generation? Why is there a board of emojis that have control over other emojis? Why do emojis have control over the operation of the entire phone? If an emoji is deleted without children, is the phone just unable to use that emoji ever again? In a film like Inside Out, the writers made the real world and the world inside the protagonist's head synchronise in believable ways, and took a lot of time to make sure that everything added up. The Emoji Movie has no time for trivialities like "sense" or "logic".
The Emoji Movie feels like an advertisement, but I have no idea what's being sold to me. Phones, maybe? Emojis in general? It was hard to pin down, but what wasn't hard to pin down was which apps paid to be promoted in the story. There are very long, cringeworthy sequences where Gene, Jailbreak and Hi-5 make their way through different apps - by the way, Dropbox of all things is the ultimate goal (you know how kids love using Dropbox). The first of these is Candy Crush, wherein Jailbreak gives a very long, excruciatingly detailed explanation of how the game works, and it felt like I was watching a real advertisement. The second is in the Just Dance app - which I didn't know existed, so I guess this movie did something right - wherein the emojis dance their way across a vast abyss, and we get a very long, excruciatingly detailed explanation of how the app works from the dance instruction avatar. It was truly incredible; somehow it even surpassed the Krispy Kreme product placement from Power Rangers earlier this year in sheer obtusity.
This may be a strange point to insert, but The Emoji Movie kind of had potential. When it started, it almost seemed to be parodying the addiction that kids have to their phones, and how that's affected communication. If the film had followed this theme through, then the ending would have been far more impactful. The phone's user could have overcome his shyness and his reliance on emojis, and expressed himself in real life to the girl he has a crush on. The Emoji Movie could have said that, yes, phones are a tool that have become an inseparable part of today's youth, but face-to-face communication is still the best way to face your fears. But instead, the kid sends his crush a super-special emoji, and she gushes over how cool the emoji is, and they go to the school dance together. So, never mind. Forget everything. The mere idea that emojis can't solve everything is ridiculous. Maybe if the script hadn't been written over a weekend, the story could have had one of those "point" things that makes movies so fun.
Now, with all of that said, I had a great time watching this movie. I saw it with a friend in an empty theatre, and those are the ideal viewing conditions. I only wish I'd brought alcohol along with me, because we were laughing, cracking jokes, and having incredibly over-the-top reactions to what we were seeing because, well, we could. We, in some small way, contributed to the financial success of The Emoji Movie, and I'm glad, because it was one of the most fun experiences I've had in a theatre in a long time.
But a good experience doesn't make up for a terrible movie, and The Emoji Movie is certainly a terrible movie. It's not even "so bad it's good," because while you can certainly watch it once and laugh at its incompetence, it doesn't leave you with an entirely good feeling. I walked away from this move just feeling empty, because it doesn't change anything. It's a stupid movie based on a stupid concept, and it will probably make enough money for it to not be considered a complete failure, but not enough to warrant a sequel. I hope that somewhere down the road, we learn some dark secret about this movie. Like maybe the daughter of a Sony executive was being held for ransom, or this film's production was based on some weird money laundering scheme. It would certainly be more interesting than anything the film itself has to offer.
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