Each and every year, I see quite a few bad movies. Unfortunate as it may be, Hollywood has a terrible tendency to make films that just aren't worth seeing. And like all other years, 2017 has seen its fair share of cinematic atrocities. The Dark Tower and The Mummy were two of the worst wannabe franchise starters in recent history. Scarlett Johannson's Ghost in the Shell looked beautiful, but it was so hollow that it practically numbed me to death. Michael Bay's Transformers series hit a new low with The Last Knight, a film so incoherent and nonsensical that it felt like the producers were showing some serious contempt for any audience members who had stuck around. And of course, there was Baywatch, a movie so profoundly unfunny and lazily written that it felt like being stuck in a special kind of comedic hell. Long story short- I see a lot of bad movies.
But every once in a while, a film comes out that transcends badness. It goes beyond being merely awful, and metastasizes into something that almost can't be reviewed and analyzed in a normal manner. These films are few and far between, but when one arrives, it's almost impossible to ignore. Going into this summer, many film critics and fans expected The Emoji Movie to be bad. I mean, it's a movie about emojis. Y'know, those little character things that you send people on your phone. There was literally almost no way that it was going to be good. But I don't think even the most critical among us expected The Emoji Movie to be so catastrophic, a piece of cinema so astonishingly awful that it caused me extreme physical and emotional pain. It isn't even one of those movies that you can excuse as being "just for kids"- even the most easily entertained of children will likely find this to be absurd. Make no mistake, this is one of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune of seeing in a theater. Are your expectations for this film already in the toilet? The Emoji Movie still finds a way to be shockingly bad beyond your wildest nightmares.
A jaw-dropping combination of The LEGO Movie and Inside Out, The Emoji Movie is set in the magical world of Textopolis, where all individual emojis are supposed to conform to their strictly specified roles at every moment. All of the emojis work in service of Alex, their user and the teenage kid who controls their every action. Gene (voiced by T.J. Miller) is a "meh" emoji, meaning that he's supposed to basically feel nothing at every moment. Unfortunately for Gene, he's not wired that way- he feels multiple emotions, a strict no-no in emoji world. His parents (Steven Wright and Jennifer Coolidge) warn him that he's not ready to be used by Alex yet, and sure enough, he absolutely panics when the time comes. Alex thinks that the phone is broken, and after a few additional malfunctions throughout the day, he sets an appointment to have his phone fixed.
Smiler (Maya Rudolph) is in charge of making sure that every emoji fits into their specific role, and because of Gene's failure, he represents a potential problem. Smiler sends the order to eliminate him, but with the help of a rejected emoji named Hi-5 (James Corden), Gene escapes to find an iconic hacker who can re-program him. Hi-5 also has a stake in this too- he wants to return to being one of Alex's "favorite" emojis. The two find Jailbreak (Anna Faris), the famed punk rock hacker with a core of gold. But throughout their epic journey through Alex's technological world- an adventure that includes a trip through Spotify's song waves and a flight with the Twitter bird- Gene and Jailbreak learn to express themselves and embrace the people who they were always meant to be.
Every decision made by the people behind The Emoji Movie is the wrong one. There is not a single redeeming quality in this film. It's rare to find a film that isn't just boring or dull, but egregiously torturous at every single turn. It extends to every aspect of the film- the horribly unfunny running jokes, the vocal performances that sound like they were recorded for a pre-school children's TV show, the setpieces that feel like corporate-mandated product placement ads. You can see this film stretching to provide some semblance of a meaningful message or a cohesive plot, but the content on screen is such a staggering miscalculation that you can't help but gasp in shock. The Emoji Movie could have been a blistering satire of the digital age (assuming that a major studio would actually want to make that), but instead, it ends up endorsing the idea that cell phones are the greatest thing since sliced bread. I was dumbfounded.
Director Tony Leondis has been at the helm for some significantly less offensive material before, which makes me wonder what he or any of the screenwriters (three were credited with the script and there's an extra credit for additional material from John Hoffman) saw in this beyond a nice paycheck from Sony. The Emoji Movie is so blatant in its awfulness that you can't help but wonder how this thing ever got off the ground, let alone how it managed to gross $125 million at the worldwide box office. It's filled with a laundry list of plot points that were stolen from better films, except that this one is so lazy in its minimal attempt to execute its story that the result is nothing short of mind-boggling. Pick any negative adjective you can think of, and it probably applies to this film.
I'm not sure if I felt bad for the vocal talent for being stuck in such a horrendous work of audience pandering, or if I felt a great deal of anger that they even agreed to be in this project to begin with. T.J. Miller has grown a reputation for being Tinseltown's most infamous and universally despised comedian, and judging by his cantankerous interviews, he made this movie for reasons beyond our own comprehension. I wasn't sure who voiced Hi-5 initially, so I was shocked to discover that James Corden had sunk to a new low to play this hopelessly annoying character. Anna Faris' character has such a predictable character arc that it made me cringe, and while I have all the respect in the world for Sir Patrick Stewart, the fact that he agreed to play Poop will stick in my mind until the end of time.
Now, here comes the weird part. I'm gonna tell you something right now- go see The Emoji Movie. In a way, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I seriously doubt that we will see a mainstream film this disastrous for decades. The Emoji Movie is a grueling physical and mental test, 86 minutes of the worst that the American film industry has to offer. It's like watching a car crash that just keeps going and going, progressively getting worse as the vehicles pile up on the highway. The horrors on display here are unparalleled in recent cinematic history, and while I know this is a film made for children, The Emoji Movie is a prime example of the decay of our culture. It is so misguided, so shameless in its self-promotion, so unbelievably simple-minded in its knowledge of the basic elements of narrative film. Odds are, you won't see something this awful for a very long time. And I want you to feel the pain that I felt and witness this Frankenstein's monster of the digital age with your very own eyes.
At the very least, it'll provide a memorable experience. To purchase a ticket to The Emoji Movie filled me with a great deal of shame, but I will likely never forget seeing this thing. At some point, the movie defies description and you just have to see it for yourself. 2017 has been a great year for cinema, and I've been quite shocked to see that people have been calling for the death of movies. But when something this bad comes out, can you really blame those cinematic skeptics anymore? I certainly can't. The Emoji Movie filled me with despair of the most unique kind, and while I had a blast laughing at this work of epic misery, there's no doubt that this is the worst film I've seen in many, many years.
THE FINAL GRADE: F (0/10)
But every once in a while, a film comes out that transcends badness. It goes beyond being merely awful, and metastasizes into something that almost can't be reviewed and analyzed in a normal manner. These films are few and far between, but when one arrives, it's almost impossible to ignore. Going into this summer, many film critics and fans expected The Emoji Movie to be bad. I mean, it's a movie about emojis. Y'know, those little character things that you send people on your phone. There was literally almost no way that it was going to be good. But I don't think even the most critical among us expected The Emoji Movie to be so catastrophic, a piece of cinema so astonishingly awful that it caused me extreme physical and emotional pain. It isn't even one of those movies that you can excuse as being "just for kids"- even the most easily entertained of children will likely find this to be absurd. Make no mistake, this is one of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune of seeing in a theater. Are your expectations for this film already in the toilet? The Emoji Movie still finds a way to be shockingly bad beyond your wildest nightmares.
A jaw-dropping combination of The LEGO Movie and Inside Out, The Emoji Movie is set in the magical world of Textopolis, where all individual emojis are supposed to conform to their strictly specified roles at every moment. All of the emojis work in service of Alex, their user and the teenage kid who controls their every action. Gene (voiced by T.J. Miller) is a "meh" emoji, meaning that he's supposed to basically feel nothing at every moment. Unfortunately for Gene, he's not wired that way- he feels multiple emotions, a strict no-no in emoji world. His parents (Steven Wright and Jennifer Coolidge) warn him that he's not ready to be used by Alex yet, and sure enough, he absolutely panics when the time comes. Alex thinks that the phone is broken, and after a few additional malfunctions throughout the day, he sets an appointment to have his phone fixed.
Smiler (Maya Rudolph) is in charge of making sure that every emoji fits into their specific role, and because of Gene's failure, he represents a potential problem. Smiler sends the order to eliminate him, but with the help of a rejected emoji named Hi-5 (James Corden), Gene escapes to find an iconic hacker who can re-program him. Hi-5 also has a stake in this too- he wants to return to being one of Alex's "favorite" emojis. The two find Jailbreak (Anna Faris), the famed punk rock hacker with a core of gold. But throughout their epic journey through Alex's technological world- an adventure that includes a trip through Spotify's song waves and a flight with the Twitter bird- Gene and Jailbreak learn to express themselves and embrace the people who they were always meant to be.
Every decision made by the people behind The Emoji Movie is the wrong one. There is not a single redeeming quality in this film. It's rare to find a film that isn't just boring or dull, but egregiously torturous at every single turn. It extends to every aspect of the film- the horribly unfunny running jokes, the vocal performances that sound like they were recorded for a pre-school children's TV show, the setpieces that feel like corporate-mandated product placement ads. You can see this film stretching to provide some semblance of a meaningful message or a cohesive plot, but the content on screen is such a staggering miscalculation that you can't help but gasp in shock. The Emoji Movie could have been a blistering satire of the digital age (assuming that a major studio would actually want to make that), but instead, it ends up endorsing the idea that cell phones are the greatest thing since sliced bread. I was dumbfounded.
Director Tony Leondis has been at the helm for some significantly less offensive material before, which makes me wonder what he or any of the screenwriters (three were credited with the script and there's an extra credit for additional material from John Hoffman) saw in this beyond a nice paycheck from Sony. The Emoji Movie is so blatant in its awfulness that you can't help but wonder how this thing ever got off the ground, let alone how it managed to gross $125 million at the worldwide box office. It's filled with a laundry list of plot points that were stolen from better films, except that this one is so lazy in its minimal attempt to execute its story that the result is nothing short of mind-boggling. Pick any negative adjective you can think of, and it probably applies to this film.
I'm not sure if I felt bad for the vocal talent for being stuck in such a horrendous work of audience pandering, or if I felt a great deal of anger that they even agreed to be in this project to begin with. T.J. Miller has grown a reputation for being Tinseltown's most infamous and universally despised comedian, and judging by his cantankerous interviews, he made this movie for reasons beyond our own comprehension. I wasn't sure who voiced Hi-5 initially, so I was shocked to discover that James Corden had sunk to a new low to play this hopelessly annoying character. Anna Faris' character has such a predictable character arc that it made me cringe, and while I have all the respect in the world for Sir Patrick Stewart, the fact that he agreed to play Poop will stick in my mind until the end of time.
Now, here comes the weird part. I'm gonna tell you something right now- go see The Emoji Movie. In a way, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I seriously doubt that we will see a mainstream film this disastrous for decades. The Emoji Movie is a grueling physical and mental test, 86 minutes of the worst that the American film industry has to offer. It's like watching a car crash that just keeps going and going, progressively getting worse as the vehicles pile up on the highway. The horrors on display here are unparalleled in recent cinematic history, and while I know this is a film made for children, The Emoji Movie is a prime example of the decay of our culture. It is so misguided, so shameless in its self-promotion, so unbelievably simple-minded in its knowledge of the basic elements of narrative film. Odds are, you won't see something this awful for a very long time. And I want you to feel the pain that I felt and witness this Frankenstein's monster of the digital age with your very own eyes.
At the very least, it'll provide a memorable experience. To purchase a ticket to The Emoji Movie filled me with a great deal of shame, but I will likely never forget seeing this thing. At some point, the movie defies description and you just have to see it for yourself. 2017 has been a great year for cinema, and I've been quite shocked to see that people have been calling for the death of movies. But when something this bad comes out, can you really blame those cinematic skeptics anymore? I certainly can't. The Emoji Movie filled me with despair of the most unique kind, and while I had a blast laughing at this work of epic misery, there's no doubt that this is the worst film I've seen in many, many years.
THE FINAL GRADE: F (0/10)
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