The Emoji Movie (Tony Leondis, 2017)
Imdb
Date Watched: 03/29/18
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: I'm beginning to suspect that I might be a bit of a masochist
Rewatch: No.
Possible Spoilers Ahead (as if you care)
As I sat through
The Emoji Movie, one thought kept repeating in my head:
This is a poor man's Wreck-It Ralph.
And by "poor," I mean destitute, homeless, and starving. The story centers around Gene, a character in a digital world who doesn't quite fit the role his society has assigned to him and he sets out on a mission to make things right. Perhaps in a bid to avoid outright plagiarism from that other, superior film, this protagonist isn't seeking to prove that he can be something else, but rather he's seeking to become what he is expected to be. And in his quest he teams up with a fellow outcast - who turns out to be a princess (sound familiar?) - and they form a bond.
Along the way, there's lots of site gags and references to real games and apps, but whereas this produced a nostalgic and warm feeling in
Wreck-It Ralph, here it just feels tedious and uninspired. Which pretty much sums up the film itself.
And yet, somehow, I didn't actively hate it. Mind you, I didn't
like it, but I never actually found myself audibly groaning or wanting to hurl objects and profanity at the screen. I was mostly just apathetic to it. I was the "Meh" that Gene was supposed to be.
-