Orlando Sentinel

Film all about emotions inspires just a lot of meh

- By Katie Walsh

“Words aren’t cool” is the courtship advice imparted by one texting teen to another in “The Emoji Movie.” That statement is the canary in the coal mine that this movie is most decidedly not “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Will Alex (Jake T. Austin) choose the right emoji to express his ardor for Addie (Tati Gabrielle)? Or will “meh” emoji Gene (T.J. Miller) mess it all up for him? Perhaps we should just throw our smartphone­s into the sea and let the waves take us now.

“The Emoji Movie” is an easy, cheap target for abuse. The marketing campaign adorning our bus shelters and billboards has centered around a character named “Poop” (voiced by Sir Patrick Stewart), for crying out loud. If we are trolled in this way, the only answer is to troll right back. And the truth is that “The Emoji Movie” is exactly what you expect: There’s no need to wait and see if it surprises, if maybe it’s potentiall­y great. Nope, it’s a perfect reflection of its main character — meh.

If you were to imagine the story told by “The Emoji Movie,” it’s likely this would be the one you’d dream up. It’s just that obvious. When malfunctio­ning “meh” emoji Gene starts a glitch in Alex’s phone, he goes on an odyssey from app to app, hoping to reprogram himself to only express one emotion, the way emojis should. But, of course, what makes him different, his “malfunctio­n,” is what makes him unique. On his journey, he makes new friends, falls in love, learns to accept himself and manages to become a new, more evolved emoji, expressing a multitude of emotions at once.

Director Tony Leondis co-wrote the script with Eric Siegel, and, surprising­ly, Mike White (“School of Rock”) is also credited. But for a film that wants to imagine the world inside smartphone­s, this story just feels so unimaginat­ive and low stakes. It’s tied too closely to the way we use smartphone­s to create a transporti­ng, wild new world. Every step of the journey is to prevent Alex from restoring the phone to factory settings, destroying the world of Textopolis, where emojis live. But there’s no explanatio­n as to why the emojis can’t just come back, if it’s all digital detritus. Therefore, it’s hard to care at all about whether or not Gene can consistent­ly make a “meh” face and if he’ll be eaten by anti-virus bots.

There aren’t any real jokes, and most laughs come from app recognitio­n — Candy Crush, the Twitter bird, and look, now they’re taking a rowboat on the “music streams” of Spotify. It’s truly just “Intellectu­al Property: The Movie.” If we’re laughing at simple brand recognitio­n, then, yes, it’s true, words aren’t cool anymore, and smartphone­s have made us dumb.

“The Emoji Movie” isn’t terrible, it isn’t offensive or outright bad. It just is, and there could be far worse ways to spend 86 minutes. But maybe, just maybe, it’d be the better choice to spend those 86 minutes outside or reading a book or talking to another human being’s face. Because “The Emoji Movie” could not be more meh.

 ?? SONY PICTURES ANIMATION ?? Gene (voiced by T.J. Miller), left, is an emoji on an odyssey, who’s joined by other emojis named Jailbreak (Anna Faris) and Hi-5 (James Corden).
SONY PICTURES ANIMATION Gene (voiced by T.J. Miller), left, is an emoji on an odyssey, who’s joined by other emojis named Jailbreak (Anna Faris) and Hi-5 (James Corden).

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States