"The Emoji Movie" is a movie. It has characters. A story is told about these characters. There's a beginning, a middle and an end, complete with climax and resolution. There are even very current pop culture references thrown in to hook those with only surface-level interest in the movie.
But that is about all that can be credited to "The Emoji Movie." It's just a movie. It's the skeleton of every run-of-the-mill movie that ever was, with no muscle or fat of creative flourish stretched across it. "The Emoji Movie" may have the least personality of any movie I've ever seen. It is the epitome of culturally exploitative corporate cash-grabbing. There is no heart. There is only Emoji.
Don't misunderstand me; this movie is not necessarily poorly made on a technical level, at least not completely. The quality of the animation is mostly up to par for 2017; the plot is fairly cohesive and makes relative sense, at least within itself; the script is perfectly functional to moving the story along; and so on and so forth. But that is "The Emoji Movie's" biggest flaw: everything about it is merely functional. It is a machine, built solely on the desire to capitalize on the most basic impulses of contemporary human socialization, and everything that forms this desire into a piece of entertainment that is recognizable as a movie is merely there to make it recognizable as a movie.
There really isn't a lot that can be said for this movie in and of itself. "Emoji's" biggest offense is a symbolic one. Some out-of-touch executives at Sony Pictures decided that their big-budget family hit for the year should be based entirely around cartoony smartphone icons that youth and young adults use to accentuate their text conversations. Think about that for a few minutes. If "The Emoji Movie" is a demonstration of arts and entertainment in 2017, we are living in a bleak and desolate world.
The most unfair thing about "Emoji" is that it makes you blame yourself. Upon finishing the film, I took with me a heavy feeling that I could have done something about this. Obviously, I could have just not gone to see the movie and withheld the film my money. But on a grander scale, even in some small amount, I contributed to a culture in which some major entertainment mogul thought this was okay, or even desirable. All of us share that blame. And it's unfair that we all have to carry it in the form of this film.
It's not worth describing the plot or characters of the film because they aren't important. It doesn't even feel like they were important to the people making the film.
"The Emoji Movie" is only a mediocre film on its technical and storytelling merits. It does nothing unique or interesting to embellish its story, and it hits every cliché note a family-friendly adventure drama can hit. But as a contribution to American and international culture and entertainment, it is an atrocity that seeks to undermine everything that is truly genuine about motion picture and visual storytelling. Do not see this movie. Do not ever see any movie like this movie. It is not worth seeing even from a “so bad it's good” standpoint. Hollywood needs to know that this kind of fad-based soul void will not be tolerated as an excuse for entertainment. Take a stand. This is as far as it has to go, but I fear it is not the farthest it will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_nfdzMhmrA&w=585