Starring: (voices of) T.J. Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris, Maya Rudolph, Steven Wright, Jennifer Coolidge, Patrick Stewart.
Director: Tony Leonidis
Release date: 4th August 2017
Gene (T.J. Miller) is an emoji who lives in the city of Textopolis, with his mum and dad, Mel and Mary. All three of them are ‘Meh’ emojis and the time soon comes for Gene to make his first appearance on ‘Alex’s phone’. Alex is a teenage boy whose phone is home to this world of emojis, and Gene is feeling very stressed about his first day on it. Alex likes a girl in his class and when he unexpectedly gets a text from her he looks for an emoji to use as a reply. Meanwhile Gene is panicking and when the time comes, he makes the wrong face. Alex is embarrassed by the emoji that’s appeared on his phone and begins to think there’s something majorly wrong with it. All hell breaks loose in the emoji world and Gene ends up ostracised and on the run from ‘the powers that be’. While he is trying to escape, he ends up meeting ‘Hi-5’ (James Corden) who stupidly convinces himself that he’s on the run too. They form an unlikely partnership and end up searching for a hacker, who they think can help them. Can the unlikely pair ultimately find what they’re looking for and avoid being deleted from Alex’s phone?
The latest offering from Sony Animation (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Hotel Transylvania, The Smurfs), The Emoji Movie imagines what life is like for the many emojis and apps which live in our mobile phones.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from ‘The Emoji Movie’ if I’m honest, though I had seen the trailer and it looked like a bit of fun. The soundtrack is really great and a great accompaniment to the feature. It’s not a bad movie, but seems very kind of ‘ad driven’.. Stuff like Spotify, Facebook, Dropbox etc. are a little bit in your face. Felt a tiny bit like they were aiming publicity for the apps at young/ younger kids. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s just the way it seemed. I did enjoy it though and found lots of very funny laugh out loud moments. There were lots of ‘adult’ jokes to keep the adults/ parents amused and visually it’s actually pretty amazing. Kids are going to absolutely love this movie, lots to keep them amused. Much as I love James Corden, I found his character, Hi-5 got a bit annoying after a while. He was just ‘too much’ in places and it felt a bit like his character was vying for pole position over Gene.
Visually amazing, it’ll be a great movie to take the kids to over the Summer holidays. I think that they will love the characters and visual imagery used. Take the kids along for a family evening out and I’m sure you will find that there’s something for everyone in this movie.
Overall: 7/10
